


The Corruption of Tao's Mind and the Rise of Chaos

by nux_myristica



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Baekhyun knows too much, Canon Compliant, Chaos, Crack, Daddy Kink, M/M, Masturbation, OT12 - Freeform, Piercings, Sex Toys, Shower Sex, Sort Of, Suho's patience wears very very thin very very fast, dramatic tao, literally everyone is horny, mentions of ABO, sehun's a little shit, tao centric, this takes place in 2013
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2020-09-23 13:57:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20341261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nux_myristica/pseuds/nux_myristica
Summary: It's always Sehun's fault, isn't it?Tao likes to believe so.  He wouldn't be here if Sehun hadn't burst into his shower that day, excited about something Tao didn't even know existed.//aka: the EXO reads fanfiction fic no one asked for





	1. Fuck you, Sehun

**Author's Note:**

> so i started writing this earlier this summer as a purely self-indulgent fic and decided why not post it lmao
> 
> let me know what you guys think! will be updated intermittently, college classes are starting up again and boi i'm not ready

Of course it’s fucking Sehun who opened the shower door, ten minutes too late, when Tao’s got conditioner in his hair and soap in his eyes. He asked Sehun to join him after practice but instead of flat out declining, Sehun offered a half-assed “one sec” and scampered off to god know’s where, leaving Tao sweaty and alone.

He’s here, now, though, and looking all too happy about it. There’s something unreadably not-good in Sehun’s eyes and Tao braced himself for the worst.

“Hey, sorry,” Sehun greeted, all too dry, still reeking of sweat from practice. “I had to do something.”

“What, take six laps?” Tao shot back, slightly bitter. “I’m almost done here, you know.”

“Yeah yeah, listen.” Sehun reached beyond Tao and grabbed the shampoo, working quick and hasty. He spun them around so he could get the direct hit of shower spray, rinsing through his hair with ungodly speed. “I found something yesterday.”

“Motivation?”

Sehun made a face but didn’t retort. “Fanfiction.”

“What?”

Nodding, Sehun grabbed the conditioner and worked a handful into his still shampoo-riddled hair. There’s still conditioner in his hair when he spins them around again, thrusting Tao under the hot water with a yelp. 

“Fanfiction,” Sehun repeated, like Tao didn’t hear him the first time. “About us.”

“You and me?” Tao squinted, not quite understanding the urgency, nor what the fuck fanfiction was. “What the fuck is fanfiction?”

Sehun grumbled and planted his soapy palms on Tao’s shoulders. Sehun stared into Tao’s eyes with grave urgency, ignoring the trail of soap that threatened his left eye. “_Fanfiction _is fiction written by fans. Like, like,” he fumbled for an example, “uh, people write fanfiction about Dragon Ball, right?”

Tao blinked. This was the first he was hearing of it. “Uh, they do?”

“I guess? I don’t know. I didn’t read it.” Sehun shook his head. “That’s not the point. What _is _the point is that I found fanfiction about us. About EXO.”

“Um, neat?” Tao said, reaching up to work the remaining conditioner out of his hair. “Kind of creepy, but cool, I guess.”

Sehun stared at him again. “You’re definitely missing my point.”

“How the fuck am I supposed to catch it when you’re not telling me it,” Tao grumbled, pushing Sehun’s hands off his shoulders. “I’m almost done, so you better hurry up and spit it out.”

“Okay, so, when I say fanfiction, what do you think I’m talking about?”

“I dunno, but I guess there’s some about us?”

“Fuck, okay, here,” Sehun huffs, exasperated. “I’m still new to this, so I’m still learning, but like, fanfiction can be anything from stories about people hanging out to uh, other stuff.”

Tao eyed him warily, spinning them around again. He was surprised they hadn’t slipped and fallen on the shower floor. “Sehun…” he warned.

“Fucking,” Sehun blurted. Then he didn’t continue.

Blinking, Tao waited for an explanation, but when it didn’t come, he frowned. “Fucking?”

“It’s porn, Tao. Not all the time, but like, half the time, fanfiction is just porn. So like, one story could be about Dragon Ball but from Vegeta’s point of view, all adventure and shit, and a different story could just be Goku getting balls deep into Vegeta’s ass.”

Trying to imagine that sent Tao’s mind spiraling down a path he wasn’t particularly interested in, but it certainly caught his interest. “So you’re saying people have written porn about us?”

“Yes, finally,” Sehun said, nodding in relief.

Tao raised an eyebrow. “Like you and me, or…?”

“I mean, it probably exists, but that’s not a super popular ship.”

Vaguely, Tao felt like someone had pulled the rug out from under him and expected him to clap about it. Like a magic trick or something. “Ship?” he repeated, questioning.

“Ship, or relationship. Pairings. Who gets with who,” Sehun explained, the words flying out of his mouth a mile a minute and half-drowned under the spray of the shower. “So, like, a popular ship in EXO is Baekhyun and Chanyeol.”

Tao pondered this for a moment. “I could see it.”

“Right,” Sehun agreed. 

“So that’s it, then? You wanted to tell me about porn you found where Chanyeol and Baekhyun fuck?” Tao asked. Picturing that was weird, too weird, and made him a little uncomfortable, no matter how believable it was. The two really _were _close, so it was no surprise fans… shipped (?) them together.

Sehun shook his head. “No, see, from what I’ve seen, a lot of fans like to ship _all _of us. No member left behind, right?”

“I’m not really into reading an orgy story, Sehun,” Tao grumbled out, cheeks aflame. He focused on the giddy look in Sehun’s eyes and not the way that an _orgy _would, hypothetically, make him feel.

Sehun snorted at him, brash and almost rude, like he knew something that Tao didn’t. “No, listen. We all get paired off. Chanyeol with Baekhyun, me and Luhan, stuff like that.”

Tao raised his brows, searching Sehun’s eyes. There it was. “Congrats,” he said, now understanding why Sehun was unreasonably excited about this. “What about me, then? Who do people ship me with?”

“Most commonly?” Sehun pretended to think for a moment, a weird smirk growing on his face. The conditioner in his hair was completely gone at this point, leaving the two of them standing under the hot water and in the building steam like a couple of old men at a sauna. “Kris.”

_Oh._

Eyes widened, Tao shot his gaze downward and resisted the urge to duck and hide. Sehun knew about his crush on Kris just like he knew about Sehun’s crush on Luhan, but it wasn’t something they brought up all that much, reluctant to deal with acknowledging the pain of what they assumed were one-sided attractions.

“This is a website?” Tao asked, clearing his throat.

“Yeah, there’s a few.”

“Send it to me.”

Sehun nodded knowingly. “I’ll send you a story I started reading. It’s what I was doing before I got here. I wanted to finish the chapter.”

“What’s it about?” Tao dared, almost afraid to ask. Part of him wondered if dabbling in this department of fantasy was going to end up screwing him over in the end, but the other, more dominant part of him was more than curious what the collective minds of fans had brewed for the public. 

“Don’t judge,” Sehun blurted.

“Why the fuck would I judge?”

Shrugging, Sehun made a face. “This is just kinda new to me too and I clicked on the first thing that looked interesting. I’ve skimmed the summaries of others, though. Things get weird.”

_Weird? _“How weird?”

But Sehun shook his head. “I’ll just send you what I started reading. Let me know what you think.” Then he ran a hand through his hair, a final rinse, and stepped out of the shower, grabbing a towel unseen by Tao. Before Tao could say anything else, Sehun was gone, the bathroom door shutting behind him.

~*~

Tao was in the kitchen, hair damp post-shower, in a white t-shirt and loungewear when Sehun texted him a link. He took a sip of water and clicked on it, watching as a page full of text popped up on his phone.

There was a title, which he ignored for the moment being, a bunch of nonsensical tags and listed names, and a summary. There were some dates and a number of chapters, too, but Tao pushed that aside, eyes scanning fast and curious over the block text beneath.

_A/B/O AU. EXO’s at a concert in China when the omegas start to go into heat… while on stage. (A/N: really just an excuse to write a lot of smut. Some plot, but not a lot LOL. Main focus will be hunhan, taoris, and baekyeol. Kaisoo, xiuchen, and sulay also present.)_

Face crinkling in bewilderment, Tao took another drink and clicked on the button leading to the first chapter. Not knowing what to expect, Tao skimmed the first few paragraphs, trying to get over the fact that somebody out there on this planet wrote this story about _them. _ Somebody, some fan, took time out of their life to write a story about them on-stage in China without much plot, whatever the hell that meant.

With each passing minute, Tao’s brows pulled tighter together and his cheeks burned brighter. Something just happened in the story that he didn’t quite catch—he and Baekhyun, like, fell? Then Luhan, then someone was screaming or something? There was a bit of chaos as the members and crew struggled to get them off stage and behind the scenes. Tao speedread this next bit, subtly wondering if that porn Sehun mentioned was ever going to come into play, then—

“Hey, Tao,” Luhan greeted, wandering into the kitchen with Xiumin. 

Tao choked. He shoved his phone in his pocket and nearly hacked up a lung, the image of Luhan sprawled on his back and begging for Sehun to fuck him burning in the back of his mind. The two older members hurried over and pat his back, trying to help him _breathe, _but it was no use. They’d effectively scared the shit out of him, and now Tao was going to die.

He stopped coughing a minute later but the shock lingered, reverberating his in veins. He felt like he got caught doing drugs or something. Shaky and nervous. Red-handed.

“Hey,” he finally greeted back, eying his water with disdain. He tentatively took another drink to calm his system and cleared his throat, unable to meet Luhan’s eye. “You guys scared the shit out of me.” A laugh. Tao needed to vacate and fast.

Xiumin laughed back. “Guess so. Are you hungry? We were thinking about ordering in tonight.”

“Uh, yeah, that sounds good,” Tao said, not really having a preference either way. He shot a glance toward the stairs, wondering when Sehun was going to come down and apologize for thoroughly corrupting his evening. “I’m gonna—” he cut himself off and abandoned his water on the counter, brushing past Xiumin and Luhan in nervous haste. He could feel their questioning eyes burning into his back but at this point? Tao didn’t really care.

Hurrying up the stairs, Tao nearly jogged over to his and Sehun’s shared room. They were in Korea for a prolonged amount of time for the moment, so everyone rearranged themselves and got new roommates for the time being. Which, thank _fuck, _because Tao wouldn’t be able to face certain people after the forced revelation courtesy of Sehun.

Door slamming open, Tao shoved himself in, staring at Sehun, who lay on his stomach on his bed, eyes glued to the blinding white of his phone. He shot a glance over his shoulder at Tao and raised his brows in silent question.

“Did you start it yet? I’m on chapter six, it’s pretty good.”

“Yeah, I started it, and I nearly _died,” _Tao half-heartedly complained. “You should’ve warned me about the first chapter. I was ready to read that thing in the kitchen. Luhan walked in.”

Sehun laughed at him. Straight up laughed in his face. “Don’t read fanfiction where people can see you, everyone knows that.”

Tao’s eyes bored holes into Sehun’s back. “Um? No? You didn’t say anything, bitch.”

“Well, now you know.”

With a groan, Tao slumped onto his bed, mimicking Sehun’s position. “Question.”

“Yeah?”

He shifted, rolled over and propped his head up by his hand, facing Sehun. “I’m confused.”

“That’s not a question,” Sehun shot back, adjusting so he could see Tao.

“What’s ABO? And why did we fall mid-concert?” Tao asked, critically aware of the bemused, slightly flushed expression consuming Sehun’s face. 

Sehun blinked at him. “I mean, I’m no expert either. I literally just started reading this,” Sehun reminded, clicking off his phone and pushing it under his pillow. “But from what I understand, ABO stands for alpha, beta, and omega.”

“Aren’t those letters of the Greek alphabet or something?”

A beat. “Well, yeah, but. Not here. Here, they stand for groups of people. There are alphas, betas, and omegas.”

Tao attempted to follow along. “Like werewolves.”

“What?” Sehun asked.

“In _Teen Wolf,_” Tao added, like that was supposed to help. “Scott’s an alpha. He’s in charge of the pack.”

“Okay, you’re onto something, just not the right thing,” Sehun replied, eying Tao oddly. “I didn’t know you watched _Teen Wolf._”

“Nobody does.”

Sehun shook his head to clear his thoughts. “Right. So there’s alphas, betas, and omegas. Think of betas as the normal group in the bunch. They don’t really have anything special about them. At least, that’s my understanding.”

Tao simply nodded, processing the information.

“Alphas are tops and omegas are bottoms. To the extreme.”

This definition was a lot less eloquent and Tao nearly choked for the second time that day, despite not currently drinking anything.

Sehun continued. “Alphas have super smell or something? I think omegas do too. I don’t know. Alphas are typically powerful and stuff, but they lose it when an omega goes into heat. Then it’s just mad fucking.”

“I’m sorry, _what?”_

“Skip the first two chapters. Go to chapter three,” Sehun said, dismissing Tao’s wide-eyed glare. “You’re in that one.”

Swallowing down his confusion and concerns, Tao did as told and pulled up the story once more, clicking his way through to the third chapter. He wasn’t sure why he was expecting an in-depth explanation about whatever the fuck ABO was and where the hell it came from, because that’s literally the furthest thing from what he got. No background, no definition, just Kris pounding into him and Tao (in the story) begging for it like a whore.

And, like. It was weird, really. Made Tao uncomfortable, but in a good way. He rolled back onto his stomach and reached back for his pillow, clutching it under his chin and nearly burying his face into it. He couldn’t stop reading. Didn’t want to stop reading.

He caught hints of what Sehun was talking about, between descript fucking and written moans. Whatever Tao smelled like in the story, it seemed to have some effect on Kris, essentially driving him off the wall with lusty need. Tao—again, in the story—kept calling Kris a mixture of slurred “Alphas” and “daddys” and it made something deep inside him writhe in heady pleasure. 

When fanfiction Kris thrust into Tao one last time, fanfiction Tao mewling and moaning, clawing desperately at Kris’s back, Kris’s cock swelling and thickening inside him to knot, Tao fisted the pillow underneath him, mouth running dry. He could picture it all too vividly. A little out of his normal fantasy, but easy enough to conjure. He suddenly felt too hot and rolled over away from Sehun, face heating up criminally. Tao gritted his teeth at the realization that he was hard. 

_Oh-kay. _

“Hey, Tao?” Sehun piped up, amusement oozing from his voice. “Having fun over there?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Tao snapped back, shutting his eyes and willing himself to calm down. “Fuck you. You ruined it.”

Sehun snorted. “I don’t care if you jerk off, Tao.”

“I—fuck off, I’m not going to. We’re eating soon anyway.”

Rustling fabric. “So? Do it later. If you want help, let me know.”

Tao jerked up from the bed, spinning around wildly to stare at Sehun, who was sitting up and slowly scooting off his own bed. “Did you just offer—”

“Yeah, I did,” Sehun admitted, utterly shameless. “I’ve been horny for the past twenty-four hours. We can just, take care of it together, yeah?”

Speechless, Tao attempted to form a response, painfully aware of his hardening dick. 

“No strings attached, really. You can pretend I’m Kris, I don’t care,” Sehun added. “Seriously. You can say no. I’m not making you do anything. I just thought I’d offer.”

“Y-yeah, real nice of you to drag me into this mess,” Tao grumbled. “I’ll think about it.”

Sehun nodded and jerked his chin toward the bedroom door. “Cool. I’m going to go downstairs. Don’t get too comfortable.” A smirk, a wink. 

“Fuck,” Tao cursed under his breath once Sehun had left. Hastily, he opened his phone, waited for the page to load, and bookmarked it. Then he shoved his phone under some blankets on his bed like it was going to hide what he just read, willing his mind to think about roaches and centipedes.

It killed his boner, definitely, but the images of bugs also freaked him out, so by the time Tao finally made it downstairs, he was not only still a little horny, but also very scared.

~*~

Dinner was long. Too long. Tao felt jittery. Couldn’t look to the end of the table where Kris and Luhan sat. Sat maybe an inch or two too close to Sehun, who apparently learned how to hide _everything, _because he didn’t seem a speck out of sorts. 

Suho offered Tao a box of something and Tao took a spoonful of it, not even looking at the food, before passing it on.

“We did well today, everyone!” Suho announced, addressing the lot of them. Several heads perked up to look at the EXO-K leader but a few—namely Tao, and Kai and Chanyeol who were both busy eating—kept their gazes down. Sehun elbowed him, jostling Tao back into focus, but it only lasted so long. He looked up and immediately made eye contact with a happy, slightly tired Kris. Kris smiled at him, oblivious to what that was doing to Tao and how today of all days, that sleepy smile affected him ten times worse. Tao tried to smile but probably ended up grimacing instead. Embarrassed, he shot his gaze down once again and poked at the food on his plate.

_Goddamnit, Sehun._

He kept quiet during dinner, which was a little unusual when it was just EXO-M, but normal when all twelve members came together. Tao always got a little overwhelmed when the beagle line decided to all start talking at once, often over each other and other members who dared interject into the conversation. Luckily, he was able to keep conversation with Sehun, who made jokes about Suho missing a step in dance practice and Lay falling asleep right when Chanyeol started singing. 

It calmed him down and distracted him from the images plaguing his mind. Fuck, what _was _this? Normally Tao could shut dirty thoughts out and center himself on his surroundings, but.

But.

That… that was just _one _chapter of one story that Sehun linked him to. He could only wonder what other stories lingered out there with his own name haunting the text, whiny and desperate. Are there other ABO stories out there? What else could these writers, these _fans_, come up with? Would he always be begging to take Kris’s dick as deep as it could go, like it was a part of him that had been missing all along? Would they flirt with boundaries, push past vanilla, and bring toys and bondage into the mix?

The idea had Tao heating up and he took a long, well-needed sip of his drink, avoiding looking at anyone. 

That didn’t mean that others weren’t looking at him, though.

“You’re awfully quiet, Tao,” Baekhyun noted, nodding toward him. Tao’s gaze flickered over to the other and he made sure to swallow his drink, not looking forward to choking again. “You good?”

“Yeah, you seem distracted,” Luhan agreed. “Is everything okay?”

Tao nodded, looking past his members, feigning eye contact. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired.”

“It _was _a long day,” Sehun added, eying Suho. “What time is practice tomorrow?”

Conversation diverted. Tao silently thanked Sehun—how hypocritical, he’d been cursing the guy all evening—and tried to eat. Ate as much as he could before his mind started to wander again.

“Eight. We also get done earlier tomorrow because it’s Friday. Saturday and Sunday we have off, but Monday we have to stop by the recording studio,” Suho replied. “While editing a few of the songs, the producers realized there was a recording error, so we have to fix it.”

There was a variety of mixed reactions to this, but Tao nodded numbly. They were always so busy. It was a miracle they had the weekend completely off, but that probably meant time for the gym and vocal practice. Kyungsoo and Xiumin would probably pester everyone into cleaning their rooms, too, which Tao wasn’t looking forward to. 

Then he started daydreaming about Kris bossing him around and punishing him when he didn’t listen. Disobeyed on purpose, more like. _Oooh._

Tao dropped the piece of beef he’d picked up with his chopsticks and sighed heavily. It wasn’t even worth it at this point. He wasn’t that hungry, and he couldn’t even focus on eating. Might as well just stop now before he made a fool of himself.

He stood up and pushed his chair in, plucking up his half-eaten plate and absentmindedly dumping its contents in the garbage. Out of the corner of his mind, he caught Luhan and Chen staring at him, staring at the food he just let go to waste, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

And why should he? There were people out there willingly writing about Kris fucking him. And Tao was going to go read it. All of it.

“Uh, bye Tao?” Chen tried, and Tao waved, mumbling out a “thanks” and hurrying toward the stairs. He ignored the inquisitive eyes and slammed the bedroom door shut, throwing himself on his bed and reaching for his phone.

Downstairs, everyone just sort of _looked _at each other.

“Is he acting weird to you?” Xiumin turned to Luhan and asked, to which Luhan nodded.

“He was weird earlier, too,” Luhan added.

Sehun stood up and sighed, feigning reluctance. “I’ll go check on him. Dinner was good.”

“Let us know if he needs anything,” Kris threw after him. Sehun offered a thumbs up as he crept up the stairs, grinning to himself. He knew _exactly _what Tao needed, but it wasn’t like he was going to go ahead and tell Kris that.


	2. A new member has joined the party: Baekhyun!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can someone please god explain to me the meaning behind tao's most recent insta updates because im losing my goddamn mind
> 
> also hi get ready for more absolute chaos

Tao turned down Sehun’s offer of some well-needed action that night and opted for opening dozens of tabs on his phone instead. He’d found exactly what he’d needed: the taoris tag. And he wasn’t going to leave anytime soon.

It took searching through several pages of fanfiction to learn that he needed to set a few other filters, too. For example, the M-rated tag. He also opened up a second page for the E-rated tag. He didn’t really know what the difference was, but he liked what he saw, so.

In the time it took Tao to flood his phone with random webpages holding a variety of situations and masturbation material, Sehun managed to get halfway through the story he’d linked Tao earlier. He updated Tao on which chapters had explicit taoris content, because who was Tao kidding? He didn’t want to read about his fellow members fucking each other. Maybe Sehun did—weird much?—but Tao didn’t have the patience for that.

This honestly felt like the closest he was ever going to get to fucking Kris, so why would he prolong the experience by reading about Lay and Suho whispering sweet-nothings? That’s right, he wouldn’t. So he didn’t.

And thank god for that.

He was halfway into something called a one-shot—it was only one chapter long, all porn, exactly what Tao wanted at the moment—when someone knocked on their door. He was seconds away from shouting out “Fuck off!” but Sehun beat him to it, launching off the bed and opening the door to reveal Baekhyun. The eldest beagle line member stepped into their room, eyes drilling into Tao’s back.

“I just came up to see if you guys were okay. We’re going to watch some TV before going to bed, you guys want to join?”

Sehun huffed a quiet laugh. “We’re fine, thanks.”

Baekhyun glanced around the room. “So whatcha doing?”

Not quite sure what had gotten into him, Tao shifted on the bed and whipped around to look at Baekhyun, suddenly eager to chat and share Sehun’s discovery. “Reading porn.”

“_Reading _porn?” Baekhyun repeated. “What fandom?”

“What?” Sehun asked. Baekhyun walked in and Sehun shut the door behind him, not too enthused about the idea of eavesdroppers. 

“You’re reading fanfiction, right? What for? Harry Potter?” Baekhyun suggested, grinning, finally in on the secret. He flailed his arm in imitation of a wand and Sehun snorted in amusement.

Sehun shook his head. “Better.”

“Uh, Dragon Ball?”

Tao grunted. “Why does everyone keep talking about Dragon Ball?”

“Guess again,” Sehun prompted.

Baekhyun shook his head. “Just tell me.”

“EXO,” Sehun said, smirking. 

A beat. Baekhyun’s smile froze on his face. “I mean, I _knew _about the fanfiction about us, but I’ve never actually, like, read it. That’s ballsy. Find anything good?”

Sehun shrugged and Baekhyun hopped onto Sehun’s bed, making himself comfortable. “I’m reading one right now that I sent to Tao. It’s almost all porn though.”

“Yeah, okay, send it to me, too,” Baekhyun said, patting the spot next to him. Sehun sat down and pulled out his phone. “They ship me with Chanyeol, right?”

Tao glanced over at the duo. “How’d you know?”

“Lucky guess," Baekhyun beamed. 

~*~

They lost Baekhyun to some comedy about ten minutes later, after Sehun sent him the link and after he’d spared the little wisdom he had regarding fanfiction and its code. It wasn’t much, but it certainly helped Tao understand just what the hell some of the summaries actually meant.

After Baekhyun left, he and Sehun fell quiet, absorbed in their own worlds. Tao finished the oneshot he’d started when Baekhyun first arrived. In this AU, they worked at some wealthy corporation. Kris was the CEO and Tao was his clumsy assistant. Which was hot in and of itself. Things only got hotter when Kris bent Tao over his mahogany desk and taught him how to be a good boy.

Bookmarked. Tab closed.

Another ABO one, this one also a oneshot. They’re in China and Tao’s about to start his heat. The rest of the subunit is at practice, but after Tao calls Kris, begging him to come back to the dorm and fuck him nice and hard, practice ends up cut short and the rest of EXO-M keep clear of the dorm, determined not to piss off Kris for getting too close to his omega.

Bookmarked. Tab closed.

Three chapters, nonAU. They’re in the practice room and Kris is getting hot and bothered from staring at Tao’s ass for too long. The room clears out once they’re done and the rest of the members head for the showers, but Kris lingers and tells Tao to stay back. Touches him in all the right places and fucks Tao against the mirror.

Bookmarked. Tab closed.

This process of reading and repeating carried well into the night, ending only when Tao shifted off of his stomach, hard and aching for something he couldn’t have. He glanced over at Sehun and found the other maknae busy with his own fic, eyes glazed over and body tense. Focused. 

Tao, with a suck of breath, stuck his hands down his pants, kind of hating himself for this but remembering what Sehun said, that he said he wouldn’t care. He tried to be fast—really, he was, it didn’t take long, which was almost embarrassing—and ended up coming in his hand. Sweaty and languid, Tao grabbed some tissues and wiped off his hand, suddenly feeling just a little dirty.

“Just go shower,” Sehun croaked, nearly scaring the shit out of Tao. It’s like he read his mind.

Flushing, Tao glanced at the door, eyes falling to the lack of hall light peeking in from outside the door. “People are sleeping.”

“So? Be quick, they won’t mind.”

But Tao shook his head, couldn’t find it in himself to leave the room, baring himself and the evidence of his shame to the real world. Dreading the idea of running into literally _anyone, _Tao prepared to just hop into bed, but Sehun’s voice cut him off.

“At least go piss.”

Tao whirled around to stare at him. “Do you want me out of here or something?”

“I need to scream into my pillow, but I don’t want you to judge me.”

“Sehun,” Tao sighed, pressing the heel of his clean hand against his forehead. “If I can jerk it while you’re in the room, I think you’ll be okay suffocating yourself while I’m here.”

Sehun propped himself up and stared back at Tao, eyes glinting in the neon glare of his phone. “No, Tao, you don’t understand. Luhan’s _pregnant.”_

A beat. “Okay, bye, I’ll be back in five,” Tao said, hurrying out of the room and shutting the door quietly behind him. The darkness of the hallway welcomed him with open arms and he swam through it, tip-toeing to the large bathroom a few doors down.

Much like a college community-style bathroom, it had a few showers and toilets, all with individual doors. The sinks and mirror were in the open, though. A motion-sensor light flickered on when Tao crept inside. He caught his reflection in the mirror and paused.

There was something in his eyes he didn’t recognize, mingling with sleep. His hair was all messy from rolling around uncontrollably on his bed, and the corners of his eyelids were red from dry-eyed tears. 

People were picturing him, his face, _this face, _when they wrote pure porn.

Tao wasn’t sure if he should be flattered or perturbed.

He chose to duck into a stall instead, quickly taking care of business. His mind wandered a bit as it had been prone to do all evening. He thought about Kris, mostly. Kris, pushing into him as they lay on a bed in some distant paradise. Kris, locking them in his dorm room and breeding Tao like an animal. Kris, eating him out in the locker room at the studio when the other members weren’t around. Tao even briefly entertained the idea of Kris barging into the stall with him for a late-night fuck. 

It would be a little weird and unwarranted, but definitely welcome.

Tao, lost in thought, flushed and wandered over to the sink, nearly bumping into someone in the process. He glanced up, readying a soft apology, but his voice died in his throat when he saw who it was.

“Kris?” Tao asked, ready to drop everything and _sprint._

Kris blinked blearily in the bathroom light, but when he realized who had spoken, he offered a tired smile. “Oh, hey Tao. How’re you feeling?”

“I-I’m fine, yeah,” Tao went with, not at all confident in his answer. Kris’s shirt was tugged down, neck bare, and his messy hair had Tao’s thoughts spiraling south. He imagined Kris shucking the shirt off and cornering Tao against the counter, hoisting him up between sinks and digging his fingers into Tao’s hair, pushing his mouth down into an open-mouthed kiss—

“You sure? You look a little red. Do you have a fever or something?” Kris made a move to touch Tao’s forehead, but Tao jerked away, accidentally bumping into the counter. “I’m sure you could skip practice if this gets worse.”

_Yeah, skip practice so I can go lay in bed, all hot and desperate for you, body overcome by an incoming heat, whining for your cock—_

“Uh, yeah, I’ll—maybe,” Tao bumbled, quickly yanking on the faucet handle and shoving his hands under icy water. He tried to calm down, told himself to get it _the fuck _together. Aimed for the soap dispenser and missed first try. Tried again, got soap, attempted to wash hands successfully. All while Kris was watching him with concern like Tao had a fever and needed to be taken care of.

_He can take care of me alright._

Literally everything bombarding Tao’s mind was some sort of innuendo and he felt himself glitching like an android, trail of thought short-circuiting as Kris’s brows pulled together.

“Okay, well. If you need anything let me know. I hope you feel better,” Kris offered, giving Tao one last sleepy smile before trudging into the same stall Tao had come out of.

The broken “yeah” died on Tao’s tongue and he ran while he had the chance, hurrying back down the hall into his room. Sehun glanced up when he entered, appearing not to have moved a single inch in Tao’s absence, but quickly turned back to the story in front of him.

Tao, fully disgruntled by his overactive imagination, plugged his phone in to charge and curled up against the cool wall, forcing his mind to shut down and go to sleep. It took longer than he would’ve liked. He was too hot, too occupied with thinking about Kris’s sleep-addled eyes and dopey grins.

~*~

It was like he’d been possessed.

When he woke, Tao didn’t clamp his eyes shut and groan, he didn’t push his face back into the soft linens of the pillow in hopes of catching another wink. No, when Tao woke, he blinked himself awake and grappled for his phone, thumbing through tab after tab and selecting one at random. 

It was a multi-chaptered fic, mafia AU. Kris was a mob boss and Tao was, well. Tao was either a runaway or a prostitute. He had one of each opened on his phone and he wasn’t sure which one this was, so he figured he was just going to let it be a surprise.

Sehun shuffled to life when Tao got to chapter four. Flopped around in bed a bit before reaching over for his own phone, thumbs tapping urgently at the screen.

_ur addicted lol. _The text flashed across Tao’s screen and he swiped it away, slightly pissed it even dared appear, but he huffed and closed the browser, typing up a quick, bitter reply.

_fuck off back to pregger lu _

_gladly binch_

They laid in silence until someone knocked on their door. 

“What,” Sehun called out, neither of them willing to get up to open it. Someone sighed on the other side of the door before pushing it open. It was Kris.

Always Kris, huh?

Tao tensed and turned off his phone, shoved it under his pillow and curled into something like the fetal position. Was it too late to pretend he was still sleeping? Kris didn’t see him fumbling just now, right?

“Tao, I know you’re awake. C’mon, we’re doing a breakfast thing downstairs before practice. Are you feeling ok today?” Kris said, his last question directed at Tao, who still refused to turn over.

Weakly, Tao nodded against his pillow, hands clutching at the comforter.

“Oo-kay, right. When you’re both feeling bold enough to leave the room, get your asses downstairs, yeah? We’ve got a schedule,” Kris reminded them, slipping out of the room and shutting the door behind him, presumably to go knock on some other poor sap’s door. Kris got stuck lodging with Suho for the duration of this trip, which, fine in theory, but their approaches to the title of “leader” were _very _different. It was probably because of Suho that Kris was even _knocking._

Usually, he just wakes up Chen, then tells Chen to yell.

Sehun pushed himself out of bed and nudged Tao with his foot, urging him to do the same. With a groan, Tao abandoned the comfort and safety of his bed and trudged out to face the day.

~*~

Practice was practice. They were doing another run-through of the choreography for the upcoming concert and Tao ended up floating in the middle for most of it, sometimes looping around the hypothetical stage, always ending back up where he started.

Most of the time, Tao focused on the footwork, on the moves, but he let his mind wander a bit during the slower parts. Ran on autopilot as he pictured the scenario from the fic he read the night before.

_When practice ends, I’ll stand in place and catch my breath while the other members leave, and I’ll think I’m alone but Kris is still here. I move to leave and he tells me to stop. Tells me to wait a minute._

_We talk a bit. He tells me I looked good. Tells me he couldn’t stop thinking about me, couldn’t stop staring at my ass. I’m still sweaty from practice and trying to cool down but each of his words is like an electric shock and I’m getting warm, too warm. I back up against the mirror and he follows. I tell him to do something about it, about those feelings and thoughts swarming his head._

“Hey, Tao.”

Sehun’s whisper broke his train of thought and Tao scowled a bit, already feeling light-headed from the intensive movement and racing imagination. They’re at a lull, moving like water, slow and steady as the lead vocals prepare their solos. Sehun’s a couple of feet behind him, but he’s leaning forward, something dirty and lecherous haunting his smirk.

“What?” Tao hissed back.

Sehun took a deep breath, taking advantage of the small break while they had it. “Come shopping with me tomorrow.”

“Uh, okay?”

“Also,” Sehun said, hastily shoving the words out. Their time was almost up. “I read something you might like, I'll link it to you later.”

Tao only offered a quick nod in response, already pushed back into action by the music, sweat dripping down the back of his neck. For a moment, he pretended that the sweat wasn’t from the dance, but from sex. Imagined a tension building inside him, aching for release. Kris’s voice in his ear, pushing him, urging him to come, come for daddy—

Something warm and metallic dripped onto Tao’s lip and he reached up to wipe it away, expecting sweat and finding blood instead. Seeing the deep red on his knuckles sent a rush of vertigo rippling through his core and he swayed, head light and vision blurring. He halted his movement, brows pulling together in confused awe.

Did… did he just get a _nosebleed?_

Was that even a thing that _happened_? Tao could’ve sworn he’d never gotten a nosebleed when he was, like, aroused before, but hey. There’s a first for everything, right?

Before anyone could say anything, Tao pressed his hand to his nose and hurried out of the practice room, head downcast. A couple of people called after him but it was no use. He pushed his way into the locker room, swaggering to the sink and fisting paper towel after paper towel. Tried to clean up the mess pooling onto his hand and running down his chin.

“I knew you shouldn’t have practiced today,” Suho sighed, a minute later, looking fairly sweaty and more than mildly concerned. He had followed Tao into the locker room without Tao's knowing, and the sudden voice startled the younger. “Seriously, Tao, are you feeling okay? You can tell us if something is going on.” He patted a hand on Tao’s back, shuffling over to help clean up the mess. 

“I don’t really get nosebleeds,” Tao said instead, baffled.

Suho shrugged. “You might be dehydrated. Make sure you’re drinking enough water during practice. I know it can be hard sometimes, but it’s really important, okay?” Rinsing off his hands, he eyed Tao with pity and an exhausted smile. 

“Thanks.” Tao returned the smile half-heartedly. Thank the deities that he didn’t venture into any Suho smut. He didn’t want to have to deal with not looking the leader in the eye. “I’ll—just give me a minute, I’ll be out soon.”

A frown creased Suho’s face. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Tao.”

“I’m fine, really.”

“You’ve been acting weird since yesterday. You obviously don’t feel well.”

Tao laughed awkwardly, tried to cover up his behavioral blunder. “I’m just distracted, that’s all.”

Another hand to his shoulder, a look of comfort and empathy. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really, no,” Tao admitted. Suho’s frown grew and he opened his mouth, most likely preparing to launch into some lecture about how it’s important to talk to the other members, yada yada communication. Tao really didn’t feel like discussing in great detail the forty-tabs on his phone and how he wanted something so badly, something he could never have. Just thinking about it made him feel dirty. Sad and dirty. 

His expression must have flickered into something telling because Suho pulled him into a hug and squeezed him. It reminded Tao of the kinds of hugs his mother used to give and he stilled, reluctant to stir his volatile emotions any more.

“We’re here for you, Tao, remember that. If you change your mind, we’ll always listen, okay?”

Tao didn’t deserve this, not right now. He didn’t need Suho to worry over him when in reality, Tao was just hornier than what he thought imaginable. But he felt awkward about it, like he’d wronged his friends, so he returned the hug and gave Suho two pats on the back.

~*~

After Tao and Suho’s odd and slightly unnecessary heart to heart, Suho returned to practice. Tao, however, did not. Suho commanded him to stop for the day, but Tao put up a bit of a fit, so they compromised and Tao sat on the sidelines, sinking into the couch with Kleenex shoved up his bloody nose as his members finished the routine.

His phone was upstairs, so Tao was stuck watching the choreography he knew like the back of his hand. He laid on his stomach and propped his chin on his forearms, eyes flicking between the bodies of his members. Kris caught his gaze at one point and he looked at Tao like he wanted to say something, but Tao shifted his line of sight away and focused on the wall by the door instead.

Maybe there was a fic out there where Tao gets fucked on this couch after practice. He wasn’t sure if the fans even knew it was here, but. Fingers picking at a crease in the faux-leather, Tao let his mind wander once again into depths he pretended weren’t there. 

He decided he’d like to ride Kris on this couch. Push those broad shoulders into the cushioned back, Tao’s fingers clawing at the skin. He’d bounce on Kris’s cock like he was made to do it, cry because it felt _so good, _beg for more. 

No.

Tao’s wrists would be tied, arms loosely around Kris’s neck. He’d bury his face into Kris’s shoulder, mouthing at the skin, pleading that his daddy let him come. He’d have a cock ring on. Kris’s hands would be on his hips, pushing him down, down, onto his thick cock. Kris would ask him what he wants. What Tao wants. 

“Whatcha thinkin’ about, hotstuff?”

Jerking, Tao blinked to find Baekhyun kneeling in front of him, staring with knowing eyes at Tao’s flushed face. Sehun walked up to them and instead of joining Baekhyun on the floor, he climbed onto the couch and straddled Tao’s back, laughing like the little shit he was.

“Fuck, how horny _are _you?” Sehun teased, Baekhyun giggling at Tao’s expense. 

Tao growled and tried to kick Sehun off of him but Sehun grabbed his ankle and tugged on his leg, causing Tao to whine. Baekhyun gave Tao a pat on the head and stood up.

“Have you showered yet?” he asked, glancing over at the other members. Kyungsoo, Yixing, and Suho had already cleared out, but the rest lingered, stretching and catching their breath. A few pairs of eyes wandered over to the trio at the couch, but no one said anything about it, already used to the bizarre antics of their members.

Tao shook his head against his chin and winced at a crook in his neck. 

Sehun slid his hands up Tao’s back, goosebumps blossoming in his wake, and whispered in Tao’s ear, “Want us to make you feel better?”

Tao didn’t even have to think; he nodded his head, then immediately held up a hand.

“I have rules,” he blurted, dizzy with heat. 

“Tell us what you want, Taozi,” Baekhyun coaxed.

Sehun shuffled and climbed off the couch, allowing Tao to get up. Xiumin and Luhan were next out the door, Kris and Kai following soon after. Chen and Chanyeol lingered.

“You guys coming?” Chanyeol asked, hand in his hair.

Baekhyun smiled and dismissed him with a wave. “Yeah, Channie, you go ahead.”

Only once the door was securely shut did Tao speak. “I’m—I’ve never really—just nothing major, okay? I’m not taking it up the ass today.”

“What about fingering,” Sehun asked, but it came out more like a statement, like he already knew the answer.

Tao blinked, flushing. “That—that’s fine.”

“Trust us, Taozi. We’ll make you feel good,” Baekhyun reassured him. 


	3. "People are fucking in the showers?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm just going to apologize in advance
> 
> warning for an ungodly amount of "daddy"s

Baekhyun was right.

They all pooled into one shower and set the temperature _just right, _didn’t even bother with the pretenses as Sehun offered two fingers to Tao’s mouth and told him to suck. Baekhyun spent the first few minutes just rubbing and massaging parts of Tao’s body, getting him to relax. Distantly, the bathroom door shut with a distinct _click_ and Tao remembered they weren’t alone.

Tao licked and sucked at Sehun’s fingers until he didn’t, until Sehun pulled them from Tao’s mouth with a pop and started teasing Tao’s rim. Tao jerked, a little hard from his earlier daydream. Baekhyun pushed Tao down a bit, got him to bend over, palms glued to the damp shower walls. Told him to relax. Told him that he’d feel real good, real soon.

That’s about the time that Baekhyun started palming Tao’s length, stroking him, fingers coaxing out the hardness. Tao shuddered out a breath and bit into his arm when Sehun pushed his fingers in, slow and steady, stretching.

Then Baekhyun started talking.

“Such a little slut, Taozi. Such a little whore for Kris’s cock, yeah? How much do you want it?”

Sehun’s fingers deftly pushed in and out, too slow, not big enough. The pressure felt weird but Tao _knew _what Sehun was searching for. Knew why his fingers curved and stroked against his walls. Baekhyun’s hand stroked back up and his thumb teased at the head. 

_Not enough._

“Want it bad,” Tao forced out, arms shaking. “Really bad.”

“Tell us how much you want to choke on daddy’s cock.”

A shudder. “_Nnng—”_

“You want daddy to find you like this, huh? All spread out and getting worked like a whore? You want daddy to punish you?”

“Y-yes, _yes,_” Tao nodded, pushing his forehead against his arm instead. Baekhyun’s hand began working faster, strokes just a tad rougher, voice low and heady, knowing. Sehun pushed once more and Tao’s legs twitched, rapidly turning into jelly. Heat blossomed at his core. He couldn’t breathe.

Sehun pushed a thigh between Tao’s legs, gripped Tao’s hip with his other hand, keeping him upright and shaking. Worked in a third finger and thrust so hard against Tao’s prostate he wondered if it might bruise. Tao moaned, hand slipping on the shower wall.

“Want daddy to tie you up, hmm? Want daddy to bend you over and spank you?”

Nodding desperately, Tao let out another mewlish moan, blinking away the tears building in his eyes. He could see it vividly: Kris opening the shower door and finding the three of them misbehaving. He’d push Baekhyun and Sehun away, glare at them for even _considering _touching Tao. Then he’d shove his way into Tao’s space and take over where Sehun and Baekhyun left off. Growl into Tao’s ears all the things he was going to do to him to remind Tao who he belonged to. Grip his hips hard enough to bruise. Thrust into him so rough that Tao cried at the pain, cried because of the pleasure.

Kris would spank him, _hard. _The heat from the water would make it worse, but it’d make Tao even harder, make him beg his daddy to come. Beg his daddy to fill him up like the whore he was.

Baekhyun kept talking, kept suggesting everything that Tao wanted to hear, fueling his imaginative fire. Pleas and moans spilled from Tao’s lips. 

“_Yes, _fuck, daddy, _I want daddy so bad,” _tumbled out of his mouth into the steam of the shower. “I want daddy’s _cum, _need it to fill me up, daddy, _fuck—”_

From somewhere behind him, Sehun muttered out a “holy shit,” fingers massaging that bundle of nerves deep inside Tao. The grip on Tao’s hip tightened for a moment before disappearing completely and Tao whined. He grappled with the slick shower wall, fingers digging into the crease between tiles. 

_Not enough._

Baekhyun pumped faster, bringing Tao closer and closer to the edge. 

“Come for your daddy, Taozi. Come for Kris-ge. Be a good boy and come.” 

Tao came. He moaned, garbled and desperate, writhing at the sensation. Neither Baekhyun nor Sehun stopped their ministrations until he was done, sensitive and soft, itching to get away and _breathe._

“Feel better?” Sehun asked a moment later, slightly amused. He was a bit breathless, eyes dark with need.

Tao nodded, casting his gaze downward. “Y-yeah, thanks.”

“Good,” Baekhyun said, also a little dazed. “Solid. Glad we could help.”

Tao grabbed the soap and went to work on washing any sweat and cum away, completely oblivious to the utterly spent expressions on the other two members’ faces. Sehun took the soap from his hand once Tao was done, scrubbing Baekhyun instead of himself. Baekhyun inched closer to the taller male to return the favor. 

It was quiet, after that, the heavy hail of lukewarm shower water consuming Tao and his thoughts. He half-heartedly washed his hair, which he knew he was going to regret later, too distracted by the lingering pleasure coursing through his system. 

He felt better, admittedly, but. It wasn’t enough.

~*~

Because of the early end to practice, they decided to have a late lunch in place of dinner, planning to just snack later and maybe watch a movie. It was rare for them to get an afternoon like this off, and everyone was eager to take advantage of the lazy evening.

For late lunch, Kyungsoo—with the help of Suho and Xiumin, and Chanyeol, who got put in charge of rice even though he didn’t volunteer—cooked up some chicken (which made Kai very happy) and vegetables. It was a good, sturdy lunch, one that would give them energy to refuel and get through the rest of the day.

When they sat at the large table to eat, the exhaustion from the past week hung heavy in the air. Chatter was quiet and unimportant, just mindless things, bouncing from new movies to fresh leg cramps. Tao kept to himself, tired and satiated. Finally, some of the pressure that had been building the last day had been released.

Only some.

About halfway through the meal, Chen set down his chopsticks and sucked in a breath, and Tao braced himself for whatever the loud vocalist had to say.

“Look, we’re all close and all, and I know we have to, um, take care of _things _sometimes, but from one member to another, I’d really appreciate if people didn’t straight up fuck in the showers.”

Dead silence. Kai dropped a piece of chicken back onto his plate, jaw hanging open.

“W-what?” Chanyeol broke the quiet, eyes wide in alarm. “People are fucking in the showers?”

Xiumin frowned, a light pink tinting his cheeks. “I didn’t think that was allowed.”

“It’s not,” Suho confirmed. Then, “Well, it’s not _not _allowed, but we’re not supposed to have relations with our fellow members.”

Tao’s gut dropped.

“Bullshit,” Baekhyun called. “Since when?”

“Since day one,” Kyungsoo continued. “It’s just ill-advised. It never ends well, even when idols from different groups date each other. The managers don’t want unnecessary tension in the groups.”

“_Bullshit,_” Baekhyun repeated, venomous. 

Chen, a few seats over, began to panic. “I didn’t mean to start shit, I just—”

“No, Chen, it’s fine. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Suho assured him, glancing around the table. “Regardless of the unstated rules, _please_, if you’re going to, uh, ‘take care of business’ in the showers, please clean up after yourselves.”

Tao lifted up a hand, brows pulled together, fire in his eyes. This didn’t sit well with him. Like the plane he was on hit turbulence and wasn’t ever going to get out of it, forever unable to fly smoothly. “I’m _sorry, _no one ever informed me of these ‘rules.’” Finger quotes. “So what if I want to fuck in the showers? What the fuck are they going to do about it, kick me out?”

Chanyeol coughed. “Are you admitting to it, or—”

“No one’s kicking anyone out,” Kris replied, sharing a look with Suho. Tao didn’t like that much, either. “Like ‘Soo said, it’s ill-advised. It doesn’t mean you can’t. You just have to be really, really careful.” 

Suho huffed and picked up where the other leader left off. “Be very, _very _careful, and don’t be stupid. It’s just better to _not, _Tao.”

_Don’t be stupid._

An icy chill settled in Tao’s gut.

“How would you even have time to date, anyway?” Luhan chimed in, genuinely astonished and kind of missing the point. “We’re so busy. I don’t even leave the dorms when I don’t have to.”

Next to Tao, Sehun made a face, gaze hardening into something unreadable. “No one said anything about dating.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Look,” Suho interjected, voice stern. “Guys, I’m not telling you _no. _I’m never going to stop you from feeling things and acting on it. But I’m just begging you all to please _be careful._”

Once again, silence fell over the table, only now, it was nearly suffocating. Feeling foreign in his own skin, Tao stood up from the table for the second day in a row, eyes stinging. He pushed in his chair slowly, all too aware of the eyes on him, and turned for the stairs going to the lobby. 

“Tao,” Luhan called out, launching up from his seat like that was going to stop him. “Where are you going?”

“To go be stupid,” he shot back, refusing to turn back. Phone clutched in his hand, Tao swallowed down the words bubbling up in his throat, ignored the other voices calling after him. He nearly ran down the stairs, needing to be alone and _away, _and pushed into the garage, grabbing the keys to one of the vans and hopping in the driver’s seat. 

He tossed his phone onto the passenger’s side when it started ringing. Someone opened the door to the garage but by the time Tao even glanced back, he was already on the street, lead foot peeling him away from the dorm.

~*~

So, uh.

Maybe Tao was a bit… _hasty._

Really, he may have overreacted a bit. Just a tad. And he was willing to admit that, yeah. 

But by the time his unbridled rage had cooled to a warm simmer, just enough to remind Tao that eventually, he had to go back, it was too late. Then Tao realized, _fuck, _he had to go back.

This had Tao starting to panic, because what the _fuck _was he doing?

He tried to calm down in some random parking lot near a shopping plaza, wedged between several other vehicles and the weirdly suppressing autumn air. Tried reading fanfiction to distract himself from the emotions funneling like a hurricane inside him, but then people tried calling him, wouldn’t stop calling him. Tao threw the phone back down and blasted music to drown out his ringtone, but this ended up drawing some attention to his vehicle. And, well. This wouldn’t really be a good time to get caught by fans.

So Tao drove. He sped past familiar plazas and restaurants, eyes glued to the horizon line. And when he finally stopped, it wasn’t at a place he’d ever given a second thought. 

He swallowed, shut down his phone, and walked inside.

“Hi, oh,” the cashier greeted, slightly faltering in shock at Tao’s presence. “Oh my god, hi.”

Tao adjusted his sunglasses and glanced over his shoulder at the waiting area. A few other people were there, but they didn’t seem to react to him. He was secretly glad, though slightly astonished. It was rare he ever felt like a normal person anymore. “Hey, um. I’d like to get a few piercings.”

“A… a few,” the girl repeated, nodding. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, typing something Tao couldn’t see. “Right, yeah. And I assume you don’t want this leaking to the press?”

“Yeah, preferably,” Tao replied, tone a little dry. 

“Sure, of course. Just, yeah, take a seat. We’ll be ready for you shortly.”

The wait wasn’t long. Tao wasn’t sure how he felt about this, because if it had been longer, he might’ve had time to change his mind.

He blames fanfiction.

God, who _was _he anymore? It’s like reading a good few fuck fics sent Tao spiraling into insanity. He felt like he lost his mind. And for what? Fun? He’s snapped at too many people recently and he’s acting _way _out of his norm. 

And it’s only been a fucking day!

Tao sort of definitely wished he’d had to wait longer, because the actual event took like, thirty minutes tops, and he got six piercings. _Six! _Six fucking shiny metal piercings now littered his body. The sting of the needles at least distracted him from the pain and guilt brewing in his gut.

He paid, tipped probably twice as much as he should have, and went to go sit very still in the van for another half hour.

Did he really just do that?

A small, metal ball dragged across the roof of his mouth and he blinked. It was then and there that Tao decided that this needed to stop.

Then he quickly changed his mind, because he thought about what Kris would say about his piercings. Thought about his daddy fucking his mouth, moaning from the extra sensation. Thought about his daddy playing with the silver rings in his sensitive nipples, about his daddy toying with the shiny studs at the base of his back while he gripped Tao’s hips.

The belly-button piercing was kind of an added bonus and made Tao feel sexy, so.

Hesitantly, he turned on his phone and winced at the number of texts and voicemails left behind. His members had stopped trying to call him roughly seven minutes ago, so he figured he was safe to type a quick text to Sehun:

_OOPS_

All caps, nothing more, nothing less. The word encapsulated all of what Tao felt right then, minus the odd rush of giddy glee. He set down the stuff they gave him to clean the piercings alongside his phone in the passenger seat and set the car into motion. 

~*~

It was almost five when Tao pulled back into the garage.

He moved in painstakingly slow motion, determined not to brush against any of the piercings the wrong way. Bag of supplies and phone in hand, he set the key down where it’d been left before and crept through the eerily silent lobby.

Tugging the sunglasses off—they’d doubled as a disguise and a way to hide the tears from the needled pain—Tao tip-toed up the stairs and glanced around the living floor with red, swollen eyes. Instantly, he was ambushed by Chen, who wrapped his arms around Tao in a hug.

“Tao!” Chen wailed, tugging at Tao’s shirt and unknowingly causing Tao flashes of pain. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to make you angry or mess things up!”

  
Tao, paranoid of lisping due to the new piercing, managed to mumble out, “It’s okay, Jongdae, I’m not mad.”

Chen pulled back and wiped a fake tear. “Good. I was so worried.”

Tao breathed an awkward laugh and shook his head, gaze falling to a point on the floor. 

“Are you okay?” Suho was next to ask, hurrying over from his spot on the couch. “We really were worried, Tao. Please don’t do that to us.”

Pink with shame, Tao nodded his head, afraid to face each of his members. Kai and Chanyeol attempted to console him, but Tao knew fell well neither of them knew how to comfort anyone. It was the thought that counted, though, and he offered them tentative smiles.

Kyungsoo and Luhan were next. They spared Tao some wise words about being young and something about feelings but Tao missed half of it because Chen snorted in the background, thoroughly ruffling Luhan’s feathers.

“Hey!” Luhan snapped, whirling on the younger member. “I’m trying to say something, here!”

After that, Lay came over and slapped a hand on Tao’s shoulder. They made eye contact and in that moment, Tao felt like Lay knew _everything _and more, like Lay understood. 

“I believe in you, Taozi,” he said, voice soft, and it nearly brought Tao to tears. 

Xiumin smiled at him and told him everything was going to be okay. Tao started crying then. He nodded when asked if everything was alright and let Xiumin give him a gentle hug, fresh piercings be damned. 

Then, Kris.

“Taozi,” he began, looking at Tao as though he didn’t know what to say. “I know we’re busy now, but if you ever need to talk about anything, I’m always here to listen. Just say the word and we can talk. I hate not being able to help you.”

_You can help me, though. You can make it all go away._

Sniffling, Tao nodded, eyes darting to the side, unable to hold Kris’s gaze.

“Hey,” Kris said, frowning. “Look at me.”

_Always, daddy._

“You’re still in there, right? I don’t know what happened to get you so upset, but I swear to God Tao, whatever it is, I’ll take care of it, okay? Please, just. Talk to me, okay?”

Another set of nods, Tao blinking away the tears in his eyes, wishing he could say something, anything. _I want to, Kris-ge, but I’m afraid of what you’re going to say._

Kris gave Tao one last look and a soft smile, melting Tao’s insides to a happy mush. Baekhyun and Sehun stepped up next.

“We’re in this together, Taozi,” Baekhyun said, and for a moment, Tao saw something sad flicker in his gaze, and he wondered if he meant the tension from the shower incident earlier, or the heartbreak that he and Sehun had gotten so familiar with. 

Tao smiled sadly at Baek and nodded. Sehun reached over and ruffled Tao’s hair, a smirk on his lips. The question hung silently between them but right now, surrounded by the people Tao cared most about, Tao didn’t provide an answer. 

~*~

They ended up watching some adventure movie Lay found in passing. One by one, each of the members made themselves comfortable on the couch and floor, popcorn and drinks in reach. Sehun and Baekhyun had a spot on the floor for him, but Tao strutted past them and cuddled up right next to Kris, heart-pounding be damned. 

Kris, slightly surprised, didn’t question it and wrapped an arm around Tao, pulling him close. Tao leaned against him and sighed, a pleasant warmth rushing through his body at the touch.

“Duizhang,” Tao mumbled, glancing up at Kris. Kris hummed and shifted his gaze, meeting Tao’s. “I’m cold.”

“C’mere,” Kris beckoned, inviting Tao to get even closer. He reached behind them and pulled a navy blue blanket off the back of the couch, draping it over them. Content, Tao snuggled as close to Kris as he could get and attempted to focus on the movie.

_Why can’t I always be like this with you?_

The movie proved to be just a tad underwhelming for Tao, so about halfway in, he began his new favorite activity: daydreaming.

It wasn’t like he’d never daydreamed—or just dreamed—about Kris before. But reading fanfiction made him feel like he wasn’t imagining the right things, wasn’t pushing his creative boundaries. Everything had the potential to be something more than it was, like this movie here.

The film was an older one, entertaining but a tad distracting due to what producers assumed was tasteful misogyny. The main hero, some adult guy, was tasked with saving a woman from peril. This woman happened to be beautiful and in distress. The perfect damsel. Tao looked beyond the gritty film for inspiration, wondering what it’d be like if he and Kris were stuck navigating a jungle.

They’d be on a tour or some shit, and Tao being Tao would see a pretty bird and wander off the beaten path. Kris would follow, determined to bring him back to the group, but by the time he managed to pull Tao away, the tour group would be long gone, swallowed by the underbrush of the jungle. The two of them would attempt to catch up, following the vague trail that the guide had set, but they’d end up stumbling across a remarkable waterfall instead.

It’d be hot out, incredibly humid, and once they gave up the motivation to find the group again, they’d entertain the idea of taking a swim. Strip down so their clothes wouldn’t get wet, slip into the water, cool off. After a bit, Tao would wade over and splash Kris. Kris would splash back and they’d start a battle. Tao would swim away, or try to; Kris would grab him and pull him back, pull him too close, and—

Kris’s hand on Tao’s arm shifted. Startled out of his fantasy, Tao blinked a few times and cleared his throat. Kris rubbed his arm absentmindedly and Tao shivered. On Tao’s other side, Luhan scrolled through his feed on his phone. 

_You have no idea what kind of effect you have on me, do you?_

A little dazed, Tao turned to Kris, whispering, “I’m sleepy, Kris-ge.” His piercing caught him on the “s” and he lisped a little, hoping Kris didn’t hear it.

He didn’t. If he did, he didn’t make a note of it. Kris’s hand on Tao’s shoulder stilled, clutching Tao’s arm in a warm grip. “You can sleep, Taozi. I’ll wake you up when the movie’s over.” 

Nodding numbly, Tao slumped against Kris’s shoulder and shut his eyes, fingers fisting the blue blanket coating the both of them.

~*~

Kris must’ve fallen asleep, too, because when Tao’s eyes opened, it was dark, and the TV was off. They were alone on the couch, Tao’s cheek pressed against Kris’s leg. A neon turquoise 12:28 beamed at him from the clock on the shelf underneath the television.

Blearily, Tao rubbed his eyes and pushed off of Kris’s lap, hazy with sleep. Kris hardly moved and it took Tao a good few shakes to wake him up. With a rumbling sigh that had Tao feeling too hot and too bothered, Kris roused from slumber.

“Oh, shit,” he grumbled, a palm running down the side of his face. “What time is it?”

“Twelve-thirty,” Tao whispered back. When Kris didn’t move, Tao nudged him again. “We should go upstairs.”

Kris sighed, slow and steady. “Why? Stay down here with me.”

“O-okay.” Tao was all too ready to lay back down, but Kris started moving further down the couch. In the dark, Tao pouted. What was the point of staying down here if he wasn’t going to cuddle with Kris?

Kris ended up using the armrest as a pillow, sort of lying on his side. He waved Tao over with his hand and Tao would’ve been embarrassed at how fast he got over there if it wasn’t so dark, if time didn’t feel so unreal. 

And Tao. He fit right in the space Kris left him like a missing piece of a puzzle. Arm draped over Kris, Tao buried into Kris’s chest, damn near whimpering at Kris hugging him closer. He tugged the blanket up and Kris tucked them in, pressing his chin into Tao’s hair.

“Tao.”

The voice, rough from sleep, had Tao peering up at Kris through his lashes, reluctant to move.

“Yeah?”

A pause. Tao briefly wondered if Kris had fallen asleep, leaving him hanging, but he spoke a second later. “I don’t want you fucking other people in the showers.”

Instead of asking _why, _as he should have, Tao just nodded, feeling all too warm, and mumbled a breathy “okay” against the fabric of Kris’s shirt.

The second time Tao woke up, it was after Kris, and around six in the morning. Kyungsoo was the only one downstairs with them and he was in the kitchen, prepping the coffee. He offered them a soft good morning but spared them nothing more, clearly not caring about the wide-eyed shock in Tao’s eyes.

_Oh man. Oh fuck._

See, Tao didn’t just “wake up.” No, he got _woken up,_ specifically, by something hard poking him in the leg. Underneath him, Kris was frozen. He stared at Tao like he couldn’t believe that this, of all things, was happening.

_Daddy’s big._

Tao’s mouth went dry.

“Sorry,” Kris uttered, embarrassed. He glanced over at the coffee table and swallowed. “Um.”

Speechless, and trying so hard not to get a boner, Tao’s jaw dropped, the part of his brain telling him to get _the fuck off of Kris _short-circuiting. The other, dirtier part of his brain told him to reach under the blanket and tell Kris “don’t be” but, well.

When Tao didn’t move right away, Kris looked back at him, ready to cough up some other embarrassing attempt at an excuse, but his words died in his throat and he stared blankly at Tao’s mouth. Cursed under his breath. Kris’s dick twitched against Tao’s leg.

And oh man, was Tao mentally _screaming._

“I—I got it yesterday,” Tao blurted instead. “The—yeah.”

Kris just continued to stare at the metal ball on Tao’s tongue. “You’re going to get in trouble.”

“Do you like it?” Tao asked, weirdly gutsy this early in the morning.

He never got an answer. Kyungsoo called over from the kitchen, “Do either of you want coffee?” which essentially put an end to the conversation at hand.

“Yes please,” Tao replied, shuffling off of Kris and ejecting himself from the situation. In his head, he wondered what would’ve happened if he leaned down and told Kris that he “got it for you, daddy,” wondered if Kris would’ve had Tao suck him off even with Kyungsoo in the other room. Then he started really thinking about what it felt like to have Kris hard against his leg. 

Tao told Kyungsoo to pour him a cup and that he’d be right back.


	4. the gang goes shopping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi hello happy holidays!! here's a gift from me to you!
> 
> in this episode, our boys go shopping.

Sehun caught him in the bathroom on the way back from shower, long after he’d jerked it this morning to Kris (as per usual) and after he’d had his coffee. Kris kept looking at him like he was trying to read Tao’s mind and weird enough, Tao started to panic, so he focused his trail of thought on coffee and Kyungsoo’s bedhead instead.

“So you slept with Kris last night,” Sehun noted, hip bumping Tao at the sink. Tao blushed and fumbled for words.

“Not like that, perv. We _slept._”

Sehun raised his brows. “Yeah, Tao, that’s what I said. Jeez, get your mind out of the gutter.”

“Fuck off.”

“Not yet. We’re still good to go shopping, right?” Casually, Sehun hopped up onto the counter and swung his legs, childlike. “I told Baekhyun, and Kai overheard so he’s coming too.”

Brows pulling together, Tao worked on his hair, interrupting the process to poke at some of his pores. “Where are we going again?”

“Well, now that Kai’s coming, we have to stop at the pharmacy and pick up some toiletries. He’s out of contact solution, and Baek and I both need shampoo. We better take the list, too, so Suho doesn’t get pissy,” Sehun huffed, ticking off the stop on his fingers. “Then we’re getting boba because I want some, then it’s a forty-minute drive to our last stop. Bring your sunglasses and maybe a hat.”

“Duh,” Tao shot back. “Why forty minutes?”

Sehun shrugged. “Dunno, it’s the closest adult shop, so.”

Tao nodded, then halted, nearly poking himself in the eye. “Excuse me, the what?”

“Adult shop. There’s some stuff we need,” Sehun repeated. “Plus, I just want to look.”

Flushing, Tao tried to clear his mind. “Is a manager taking us?”

“Nope,” Sehun said, popping the ‘p.’ “Baek offered to drive.”

One of the bathroom stalls opened and Chen strolled out, definitely not looking like he’d been eavesdropping the past ten minutes or anything. “Drive? Where are you going?” he asked, all forced nonchalant.

“You can come too, Chen. But don’t invite anyone, ‘cause we’re running out of room.” Sehun waved, almost bored, and Chen did a subtle fist pump.

“I’ve always wanted to go to an adult store,” he said, grinning.

Tao stared at him. “Why.”

“I don’t know, just seems like an adult thing to do.” Chen shrugged and washed his hands, glancing at Tao. “Plus it’s good reference material.”

“Reference material for what? The spank bank?” Tao snorted.

Chen smirked. “That, yeah, and fanfiction.”

“God fucking damnit,” Tao grumbled.

Sehun perked up in sudden interest, looking over Tao’s head at Chen. “Oh? You read?”

“And write,” Chen clarified, smug. 

“What for?”

“Harry Potter, actually. And us.”

Tao frowned. “Read or write for us?”

“Both,” Chen shot back.

Unimpressed, Tao glanced at Chen and scowled. “Unbelievable. You write freaky porn about yourself or something?”

Surprisingly, Chen shook his head. “Nah, I write freaky porn about Chanyeol and Baekhyun.”

“Nice,” Sehun said. They hi-fived behind Tao.

“Yeah, part of the reason I brought up the shower thing was because I wanted to know who it was,” Chen explained. “I needed reference and it sounded like Baekhyun’s voice, so I was gonna kink-shame him, but it turned into a whole mess instead.”

Tao huffed. “It was Baekhyun.”

“And Tao, and me,” Sehun added.

Chen’s eyebrows shot up and he pursed his lips, intrigued. “Fascinating. And you all fit in there okay?”

Sehun nodded. “Yeah, we were in that first stall, the one that’s weirdly bigger than the others?”

“Oh, yeah, okay, that makes sense—”

“Can we not talk about this right now?” Tao interrupted. It was too early for his mood to go sour, and he’d had such a nice start, waking up nice and cozy with Kris’s hardened cock.

A snort. “Jesus, touchy much?” Sehun teased. “You get in trouble with daddy or something?”

Tao opted not to respond.

“I’ve got some questions, but those can wait.” Chen leaned against the counter, regarding Tao before switching his attention to Sehun. “So. You read?”

“Yeah, we both do,” Sehun answered for the both of them, patting a hand on Tao’s shoulder. “That’s why this fucker has been so moody lately. He’s just really horny.”

"Bye, Sehun.” Tao gave up styling his hair and backed away from the mirror above the sink, waving at the chatting duo over his shoulder. “See you in an hour.”

Chen called out after him but Tao was gone, beelining out of there before he could get wrapped up in something he regretted. 

~*~

They loaded up in the car a bit after nine, with Tao in the backseat. Normally, he’d complain about this, but being in the back meant no one could peer over his shoulder, so he got nice and comfortable and opened up the fic he was reading the day before. Up front, Kai fucked around with the radio while Baekhyun drove. Sehun and Chen were continuing their conversation from the bathroom, throwing literally all caution to the wind.

Tao tuned them out, pretended they weren’t going into full detail about a story they’d both apparently read where Baekhyun and Chanyeol went to town on a football field. Baekhyun chimed in every so often, which made things even worse somehow, and Kai just laughed. Tao didn’t think the guy knew what was going on.

Kai admitted to not knowing what was going on, but they’d pulled into the pharmacy lot. 

“I’ll tell you when we get back in the car,” Baekhyun promised. 

They moved fast. Suho had added like, five other things before giving them the list, and Tao didn’t even have the list with him, so he left the group shopping to the other four and wandered down the aisles looking for his own stuff. He picked up a few face masks (then Baekhyun yelled at him from three aisles over to pick up a few for him, too) and snatched some tissues. No reason.

Once they finished up at the pharmacy, they loaded the van and drove an extra five minutes to some boba place. Tao got iced peach tea with boba and pushed his way back to his seat in the car, determined to get comfortable once again.

“So what’s happening?” Kai asked, his voice distant and muted by the air conditioning in the car. “Baek, are you and Chanyeol a thing?”

“No,” Baekhyun laughed. It wasn’t genuine; there was a hint of bitterness that hung heavy in the car. “No, we’re not. Kai, have you heard of fanfiction?”

“Like for Dragon Ball?”

Tao groaned.

“Yeah, you know. Stories written by fans.”

Kai paused and looked over at Baekhyun. “Isn’t it just porn though?”

“Yeah, pretty much. They’re talking about a fanfiction someone wrote about me and Chanyeol.”

“Oh, I’ve seen those,” Kai said. “Is that what we’re doing now? Reading porn about ourselves?”

Baekhyun made an amused noise. “Yep.”

“Cool, okay.”

Tao sipped at his tea and thumbed through his phone, wanting something short for the car ride. That mafia AU was good, but he just hit some angst, and he wasn’t sure if he could handle that right then. So he found some fic where he was a succubus instead.

Two paragraphs in and—“Tao, where _did _you go yesterday?”

Head jerking up, Tao found Chen staring at him, waiting for a response.

“Oh, uh,” Tao began, debating over telling the truth or not. “I just, drove around a bit. Then I got, ah, a piercing—”

“What, where?” Sehun asked, whirling around to join the conversation.

Tao stuck out his tongue. It was only fair he tell them about this one. He had to talk, after all. They were bound to notice it eventually. 

“Holy shit, that’s baller,” Chen praised him.

Blushing, Tao ducked his head, briefly thinking back to how Kris reacted this morning. “Thanks.”

“Is that why you texted me oops in all caps?”

Tao hesitated for a moment. “Yeah.” A laugh.

“Did it hurt?” Kai piped in from up front.

“A little bit, yeah. I couldn’t really talk yesterday, otherwise I would’ve sounded like Sehun used to.” He poked Sehun in the side and the younger male yelped, reaching back and swatting at Tao’s knees. Tao dodged the attack and swung his legs up over the headrest, accidentally sliding and rubbing his lower back against the seat. Still a little tender, Tao tensed and readjusted.

He turned back to his phone, signaling an end to the conversation and opened up the new fic, losing himself to its contents. Being a succubus—Tao wondered why he wasn’t an incubus, but didn’t really care enough to question it—meant that Tao fed off sexual energy, and Kris turned out to be his poor victim. But fic Tao fell fast and hard for the human. Kris fucked him like no other human could. Kris made him feel alive.

Right as fanfic Kris was coaxing fanfic Tao to orgasm, doggy-style fucking him hard enough to turn Tao into a mewling mess, real Kris texted him. Tao was prepared to be irritated, but seeing that it was Kris, he became more embarrassed than angry, bashfully clicking on the message and staring at the text on his screen.

_yes_

Cryptic. Tao typed up a quick _what?, _assuming Kris had messaged the wrong person.

It took a moment, but: _you asked if I liked it. i do._

Tao didn’t really need a verbal answer, but the fact he got one sent a shiver down his spine and he sunk like putty into his seat. Resisting the urge to squeal like an excited high school girl, Tao slapped his palm over his mouth and grinned. 

If Kris liked the tongue piercing, Tao could only wonder how he’d feel about the rest of them. He debated hinting at the others, texting Kris that there were more, but telling Kris in person and seeing his reaction was much more worth it. At least, Tao hoped.

Something inside him told him that it would be. 

~*~

The store that Sehun told them about looked a lot less… promiscuous from the outside. Really, it just looked like any other store. You know, any other store with blacked-out windows and plastic sign plastered above the door, telling them and everyone else for miles what exactly this place was.

They wandered in in a near single file line, Tao bringing up the rear. Some woman a few years older than them welcomed them to the store and offered to help them find anything. Sehun told her they were going to look around first.

Chen and Baekhyun stuck together, weirdly enticed by the idea of rubber suits—Tao wasn’t sure he even wanted to know what the fuck that was—and Kai, the lost puppy, trailed after Sehun down the lube aisle. So Tao strolled down the center, eyes lingering on cherry red rope and thick black chokers and leashes.

_Fuck._

Tao suddenly got the urge to be brave.

He pulled out his phone, snapped a picture of the varying ropes, collars, and whips, and sent it to Kris with the caption: _see anything u want? lol_

Then he shoved the phone back in his pocket, face aflame, feeling like a tease. He was flirting with something that didn’t exist. If Kris shot him down, Tao would just play it off like a joke and bottle up his feelings, as he had been for the past several months.

Pep in his step, Tao walked further down the aisle, passing the ball gags and blindfolds, trespassing straight into lingerie territory. He’d feel weird about buying anything, really. Yeah, he was tempted, but like, where the fuck was he supposed to put it? In a fucking shoebox with the rest of his nonexistent magazine clippings? No thanks.

He backed out of the lingerie and near moonwalked back into the aisle he’d just been in, the urge to look for something specific. There was a specific image in his mind, either from a fanfic or fantasy or both, and it involved a cock ring. Maybe handcuffs or something, too.

His phone buzzed in his back pocket. Tao waited a moment, crouching down and looking at the cock rings with heated curiosity. One in particular caught his eye. The label said it vibrated.

Just like his phone, which went off again, reminding him of the unread message.

Tao tugged it out and glanced at the screen.

Message from Kris: _where r u_

Vibrating ring in one hand, Tao typed up a smartass response. _at a store lol_

He waited for a response, but it didn’t come. He shuffled back over to the rope and started eying a choker with a ring on it and had literally just put his phone away when it started going off again. Confused, he pulled the phone back out and blinked. Kris was calling him.

Answering, Tao put the phone up to his ear. “Hey.”

_"Hey,” _Kris replied, the simple word setting Tao’s nerves aflame. “_Seriously, what are you doing there?”_

“What, you know this place?”

_"No, but I know what it is.”_

Heat. “Okay, cool. Sehun dragged us here. Was there something you wanted?” 

Silence on the other end. Tao went about perusing the items, pretending the flush on his face wasn’t there. He hoped none of the members would come near him while he was on the phone and snuck a glance in several directions. So far, so good.

_"What do you have so far?”_

Even more of a gutsy question. Tao stumbled over his words. “Um. I’m looking at chokers. And I, uh, grabbed a um, cock ring.” He left out the vibrating part. The less words, the better.

Kris let out a breath, but Tao couldn’t tell what it meant. “_Good start.”_

“Where are you?” Tao asked instead, eager to escape the tension, if just for a moment. He meant to tease Kris, but with the way the conversation was going, Tao felt something else taking mirth’s place. “Are you still at the dorm?”

_“Yeah,_” Kris replied, followed by what sounded like fabric shuffling. “_I just took a shower.”_

Oh. Images of a half-naked, still damp Kris flooded his mind. Tao grabbed a choker, something velvet with a smaller, but still very accessible silver ring. He also grabbed a small basket off the end of the aisle and put the two items down.

Jesus Christ.

“Are you guys going anywhere?” The question came out a little breathier than he meant it to, but hey, too late. He tossed a silky black blindfold in the basket and kept moving. Maybe if he didn’t dwell in a place for too long, he wouldn’t be forced to fantasize about certain things and certain people doing unspeakable things to him.

On second thought, Tao doubled back and grabbed a set of leather handcuffs.

Kris sighed, almost annoyed. Tao tried not to smile at the other’s irritation. “_We were supposed to go pick up some groceries and stuff that wasn’t on the list Suho sent with you, but Chanyeol took forever to get his ass up, so we haven’t left yet. He still hasn’t showered. Suho’s about to rip his hair out.”_

Laughing lightly, Tao dodged the lingerie aisle and turned right, nearing Kai and Sehun. He ducked down an aisle with vibrators and dildos instead.

“Always Chanyeol,” Tao remarked, thinking back to the multitude of times in which the tall, walking sunshine held them up for events and errands.

“_Yeah, and Chen wasn’t here, so I had to convince Xiumin to yell at him instead,_” Kris complained.

Tao hummed and tried not to think too hard as he basketed a purple butt plug and a vibrator that reminded him of Kris’s sturdy length, pressed against his thigh in early morning light. “How unfortunate,” he teased.

A laugh, then a pause. Kris cleared his throat. “_Is today any better?”_

Slowing down, Tao stared at a monstrously large dildo, the question bouncing around in his head. “Yeah, actually.” Another pause, then quieter: “Thanks.”

_“Yeah,”_ Kris replied, soft. Then he chuckled, albeit awkwardly. _“Sorry about this morning.”_

There it was again, the heat. Tao laughed back. “Don’t be, it happens.”

_Don’t ever apologize for cuddling with me, daddy. Don’t ever apologize for giving me what I need._

They fell quiet again. Tao shuffled out of the aisle and approached Kai and Sehun, who were snickering over something ten feet away. Sehun caught sight of Tao first, not realizing he was on the phone.

“Hey, Tao.” Sehun waved him over. “Check this out. These are _flavored.”_

As Tao approached, Kai’s gaze dropped his hands. “What the fuck, where’d you get a basket?” 

“At the end of the aisle,” he shot back dryly. “Where the rest of them are.”

Kai peeked over Tao’s shoulder, not really making an effort to look. He started rummaging around Tao’s basket instead. “Wow. Quite a collection you’re building here. No gag?”

“Fuck off.” Tao angled the basket away, glared daggers at Kai.

Sehun, though, slapped Kai’s shoulder. “Why would Tao get a gag? He’s too mouthy.”

For a moment, Tao, too, forgot he was on the phone. “Fuck you too, Sehun.”

“Yeah, that’s why he needs one,” Kai insisted, straight up talking over Tao.

But Sehun shook his head. “No, Kai, you don’t understand. Tao’s a beggar.”

“Oh, my god. How would you know? One time and you think you understand everything, is that it?” Tao snapped.

Kai made a face, torn between amusement and confusion.

“You’re like that in fanfiction, too, Taozi. You just have a vibe.”

“Can you just move and let me get lube?” Tao sniped, suddenly startling when Kris huffed laughter in his ear. _Oh my god. _

Smirking, Kai pointed at a bottle. “Get a flavored one.” He picked one off the shelf and turned to Sehun. “Do you think it actually has a taste, or is it just scented?”

Sehun opened his mouth to respond, but he clamped it shut, suddenly unsure.

Scoffing, Tao grabbed something random and tossed it in the basket, completely beelining past the condoms. Only once he was out of the aisle did he venture to look at what he took.

Peach.

Wow.

“_So you have a vibe,” _Kris started, teasing lilt to his voice. Tao groaned.

“Don’t get me started. I’m so pissed. I should’ve come up with something _scathing_. Maybe I’ll just roast him in the car,” Tao grumbled. He thought for a minute, trying to remember something embarrassing he could use against Sehun. “Oh, I got it.”

“_Yeah?”_

“Yeah.” Tao smirked cruelly, loitering by the back wall where several roleplay costumes were hung. “Yeah, oh my god. He turned to me in the middle of the night two nights ago and kicked me out of the room so he could scream about how hot he got thinking about Luhan being pregnant.”

Kris made a disgruntled noise at the back of his throat. “_Seriously?”_

“Mhmm,” Tao hummed. “He’s got weird tastes.”

A beat. _“Just him?”_

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He tried to sound offended, but he ended up sounding whiny instead. 

Kris just laughed at him. Laughed for too long. 

“Hey, fuck you too,” Tao mumbled, fingers poking at a schoolgirl skirt. “You don’t know anything.”

_"I know you have a vibe,” _Kris shot back. “_I know you’re a, what now? A beggar?”_

Oh, man, was Tao going to kill Sehun. “Sorry, what? I can’t hear you, I think my phone’s dying.”

“_What do you even beg for?” _ Tao wasn’t sure if Kris was genuinely curious or revving him up to tease him some more, but either way, it had Tao feeling nice and hot. When he glanced over at where Baekhyun and Chen had been, he found Chen pushing Baekhyun on what looked like a sex swing. The scene was ridiculous and Tao snorted, glad for the momentary distraction.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Tao drawled, mouth dry.

A hum, low and reverberating. “_Maybe I would.”_

…

…

Tao actually stopped breathing. 

“W-well,” he forced out, a little choked, definitely light-headed. “That’s, um—”

_“Tao, you don’t have to tell me anything,”_ Kris quickly covered, cueing another awkward laugh. “_Sorry, I—”_

“N-no, it—it’s fine,” Tao interrupted, swallowing that knot of nervousness in his throat. “I can tell you. If you want. But don’t like, tell anyone.”

_“I wouldn’t tell anyone anything, Tao.”_

It was basically Kris’s way of saying, “your secret’s safe with me,” which had Tao shivering for a whole other reason. He didn’t spare a moment to think about how weird this conversation had gotten and how quickly it had gotten there. Didn’t let himself _think, _which was proving to be a bit of an issue, really. His mouth moved on its own, words spilling out in a hushed, tentative whisper.

“I beg for daddy’s cock,” Tao started, suddenly dizzy, suddenly conscious of the metal ball rolling against the roof of his mouth as he spoke. “Beg for daddy to fuck me nice and hard. Beg for daddy to fill me with his cum. I… beg for daddy to play with me. Breed me.” An embarrassed, disbelieving laugh. “I’m—I’m gonna stop there. I need to go. I’ll see you when I get back.”

“_Tao—”_

Tao hung up. Shoved his phone in his back pocket and hurried over to Chen, who was struggling with a stuck Baekhyun. Body overheating, face aflame, Tao pretended he was fine, pretending he wasn’t internally shaking with unbridled _fear, _afraid that Kris was going to judge him and leave him in the dust for being so… so…

Maybe Kris _was _just teasing him. Maybe this was just going to be some inside joke between them, and everything would go back to the way it was, and Tao would pretend he was okay.

“Fuck, Chen, pick up my foot,” Baekhyun insisted, right arm swinging wildly around some chains. Chen wrestled with one of Baekhyun’s shoes and Baek kicked at him. “Other foot!”

“Your other foot is on the ground!” Chen exclaimed, near his limits.

Tao scoffed. “Oh my fucking god.”

“Tao!” Baek snapped at him, beckoning him over. “Help me out of this thing!”

Setting his basket down, Tao breached the distance and aided the struggling duo, laughing at Baekhyun’s flustered face and stern glare. Baek slapped Chen on the arm three times before hurrying off, determined to pick up some stuff for himself. 

Before Chen could focus his attention on Tao and force him into some contraption next, Tao ducked behind a shelf and pretended to be interested in lacy underwear.


	5. "don't be stupid"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey hey! 2020's a real wild one so far, isn't it??? shoutout to tao and that shade thrown asdfghjkl
> 
> congrats to jongdae & his fiancee!

The forty-minute drive home turned into an hour-and-a-half ordeal, in which Baekhyun got lost turning out of the parking lot and they ended up outside an old warehouse and with each minute, Chen proceeded to get increasingly nervous. Right when they figured out directions to get home, Sehun launched out of the car with the excuse he needed to pee.

Then he didn’t come back.

Terrified, Baekhyun locked the car doors and started frantically calling Sehun. He slapped at Kai, whose hands itched to turn on the radio. Chen hopped from seat to seat, giving himself whiplash as he stared out the car windows searching for the lost maknae. 

Sehun reappeared fifteen minutes later, face scratched and bloody. He knocked on the passenger door window and Kai screamed. Baekhyun unrolled the window but didn’t unlock the doors, staring at Sehun with extreme trepidation.

“I found a raccoon,” Sehun said by way of explanation.

Tao peeked over Chen’s seat, scowling. “Did you try to hug it?”

“Yeah, it didn’t go so well.”

Baekhyun cursed under his breath and ushered Sehun in the car. Once he was in, Baek floored the gas and sped the way back home, turning two rights too early and pulling into the urgent care at the hospital. He shooed them out of the car and told them to go in while he searched for a parking spot.

One look from the medical staff and a doctor hurried out, bypassing several other patients who didn’t seem to care much to assess the damage on Sehun’s beautiful face. They pulled him into a room, told Chen he could come with, and left Kai and Tao to their own devices in the lobby. A few people stared at them, obviously recognizing their faces, and Tao briefly wondered just how long it would take for this emergency stop to hit social media. 

Not long enough, apparently. Kai got a call from Suho ten minutes later. Tao couldn’t hear what Suho was saying, but it was obvious he was _not _pleased.

“Yeah, we’re at urgent care, how’d you know?” Kai asked dumbly. “Oh, wow, that was fast… yeah, no Baek’s parking and Chen went in with Sehun, I’m in the lobby with Tao… the what now?” A pause, and Kai shared a look with Tao, rolling his eyes. “I don’t know? There was a run-in with a raccoon.”

Angry chatter on the other end.

“How am I supposed to know? He just said he had to pee.”

Tao felt the burning presence of his phone in his pocket, but he refused to pull it out, afraid of what he’d find. Plus, it wasn’t like he was about to read some fanfiction in a public place where people were actively watching his every move.

Kai made a noncommittal noise. “We’ll be back soon, I think. It’s not like this should take long.”

“It won’t, unless Sehun has rabies now,” Tao jabbed.

Kai’s eyebrows skyrocketed. “Oh my god, Tao thinks Sehun might have rabies.”

“I do not!” he tried, but it was no use.

“Sehun could _die,”_ Kai droned on, making up his own conclusions as he went. “I’m not ready to be the maknae.”

Chen pushed his way out the double doors he’d previously vanished behind and hurried over, an amused look on his face. “Sehunnie’s fine, doctor said. He might be a little loopy but it’s just because of the pain killers they’re giving him. Also, no make-up until it’s healed.”

Suho must’ve heard this bit, because the other end of Kai’s call roared. Kai pulled the phone away lest he bust his ear drum.

“Didn’t I tell you? It got his face. God, he looked so scary when he knocked on the car door—”

More chatter. 

“Okay, yeah, I’ll tell him. I’m gonna go now, it shouldn’t take much longer. Okay… okay, yeah… okay, Suho… _okay!_ Good-bye!” Kai hung up and groaned. When he turned to face them, his gaze was haunted. “Suho’s got a lecture planned.”

“Of course,” Chen huffed. “Don’t be stupid, he says. Tao goes and gets his tongue pierced, Sehun gets attacked by a raccoon. What’s next?”

Baekhyun hurried in through the hospital entrance, distress coating his features. “Guys,” he panted, nearly sprinting over, glancing frantically over his shoulder. “Guys, I just hit someone in the parking lot.”

Chen simply shakes his head in disappointment. “You lot need a chaperone.”

~*~

Sehun’s all drugged up and bandaged like a mummy when they get in the car ten minutes later. Behind the bandage-wrap, he’s grinning like an idiot, right eye swollen. Baekhyun, in pure panic, left a note with his phone number and a hastily written sorry on the windshield of the damaged car.

And, wow. Like, that’s _bad. _Tao’s almost embarrassed to be in the same car as Baekhyun.

Suho’s in the garage with his hands on his hips, head shaking, with Kris standing beside him, looking a lot less stern and a hell of a lot more bored. A few heads are poking out from the doorway into the lobby, awaiting the eventual roast.

Baekhyun steps out first, a sheepish smile on his face, feet carrying him over to stand in front of the dent on the front of the van. “Hey, Suho. Nice of you to welcome us home.”

“When I said, ‘don’t be stupid,’ that wasn’t restricted to relationships,” Suho started, clearly unimpressed. “That applied to _everything.”_

“Sorry,” Sehun said, not sounding sorry in the slightest. His left eye and upper cheek was the only area not completely mummified. 

Suho just looked at him. “What possessed you to do that, Sehun?”

“There was a raccoon. It waved at me.”

Beside him, Kris scoffed. Suho just shook his head again, looking beyond displeased. “No, we don’t—do I even have to explain this? God, it’d be one thing if like, Kai or Chanyeol pulled that, but _you, _Sehun?”

“Hey!” Chanyeol yelped from the garage doorway.

“I don’t know. It’s over, now. Can I go inside? I need to pee,” Sehun said.

Chen gaped at him. “Again!? Didn’t you go by the warehouse?”

“No, I saw the raccoon and got distracted.”

Suho blinked. “_Warehouse?!”_ Kai and Tao shuffled out of the car in time for Suho to explode. “Why were you at a warehouse?! You know what goes on in warehouses? Drugs! Trafficking!”

“We didn’t get trafficked and we’re not on drugs,” Tao drawled. “We just got a little lost.”

“But—we sent you to the pharmacy. The pharmacy! That’s like, ten minutes tops away from here! How’d you end up over by a _warehouse?_” Suho’s arms were up in the air at this point, eyes wide, patience thinning very, very quickly.

Chen replied, too smooth, too calm: “Sometimes it’s not about the destination, but about the journey and memories made along the way.”

Suho jabbed a finger in Chen’s direction. “Did you do something stupid today?”

“Uh, no, I don’t—”

“Get in the house.”

Chen didn’t put up a fight and hurried inside. 

Tao figured now wasn’t a good time to unload the bags in the back of the van. It also wasn’t a good idea to make desperate, scared eyes at Kris, who was apparently already staring at him. There were too many people in the doorway for him to make a quick getaway, but he didn’t like being under Suho’s direct line of fire, so Tao did the only thing he could think of and got back in the van.

“Tao?”

He slammed the door shut, blocking out Suho’s angrily inquisitive tone, and clambered back to the backseat, wanting it all to be over. For the moment, Suho switched his attention to Baekhyun, who’d shifted a bit to watch Tao make an attempt at a getaway, revealing the dent in the vehicle. Tao sent a mental apology Baekhyun’s way, instantly curling up in the comfort of the dark.

Kai made a mad dash into the vehicle a minute later and locked the doors, the car honking to let the entire garage know. From what Tao could see of Suho’s expression, the leader was glaring at the vehicle, presumably assuming the worst.

“Man, that’s rough,” Kai noted, wiping his palms on his legs. He was in the middle row, a panicked smile on his face. “I’d hate to be in his spot.”

“You are, Kai. We all are.”

Frowning, Kai halted his movements. “What, why? Chen didn’t do anything and he got away with it.”

“I don’t know,” Tao mumbled into his knees. “He’ll probably get a lecture later about not preventing this from happening.”

Grumbling, Kai pulled out his phone and propped an elbow against the car door, making himself comfortable. The second he stopped adjusting, someone knocked on the window, and Kai jumped.

It was Kris.

Suho’s tirade continued, hands flailing in the direction of the van, and Yixing had appeared out of nowhere, consoling hand on Suho’s shoulder. Sehun had wiggled his way into the house, far too dopey to be affected by anything but the drugs, but Baekhyun leaned against the van like a sexy-calendar girl, angling his body in an attempt to make the dent look slightly less terrible.

Kai, out of his skin for the second time that afternoon, watched in horror as Kris tried the door handle. 

“Open it,” Kris commanded, only slightly muffled through the window. 

In response, Kai shook his head. 

Kris’s eyebrows shot up and he glanced back at Suho, then back at Kai. Tried to convey via eyes that he was the lesser of two evils.

Still, Kai shook his head, tight-lipped and wide-eyed. Kris pulled out his phone, and Kai’s phone rang. 

“Hello?” Kai answered dumbly.

“_Jongin.” _ Kris’s voice was steady, warning. His gaze bore into Kai through the window. “_Get out and unload the car.”_

Kai shook his head. “I don’t want to get yelled at.”

_“Did you do something to warrant getting yelled at?”_

“Well, no, but—”

“_Just get out of the car.”_

Kai glanced back at Tao and Tao tried to hide, despite knowing full well that Kris had seen him. “What about Tao?” Kai asked. “I don’t want to get out if he doesn’t have to.”

_“You both have to. Stop being ridiculous and get out. Somebody needs to bring the bags in.”_

With a resigned sigh, Kai hung up and spared another glance at Tao’s hunched form. “We have to unload the car.”

Tao huffed. He didn’t want to move, much less grab his purchases and parade them through the house, but Kris said he had to, and it wasn’t like Tao was going to tell Kris _no._

_~*~_

The rest of the evening went relatively well, considering the tension in the garage. Tao and Kai managed to make it into the house with several stern reminders about what it meant to be an idol and why they had to be “smart” about things. Kai, in charge of the pharmacy goods, dropped the plastic bags off on the kitchen counter, while Tao, loaded with several blaringly obvious pink paper bags, hurried upstairs and made a good few personal deliveries.

He kept his own… stuff in the pink bag and tucked it under the furthest corner of his bed he could reach. Sehun was already in their room, eyes glassy and glued to his phone, so Tao shuffled back out and ventured downstairs.

Suho had finally calmed down. He looked vaguely apologetic about his outburst, eying Tao with a half-smile as he spoke with one of their managers on the phone. Yixing stood at his side, making notes on a piece of paper, and Baekhyun stood on Yixing’s other side, supplying details when needed.

The rest of the group, apart from Chen and Kai, both of which were upstairs hiding their own contraband, was absent. Tao figured they’d finally made it to the grocery store and wouldn’t return until later. 

Unsure what to do with himself, Tao sat down on the couch and pulled out his phone. Fic time. The one he was reading in the car was practically done, so he bookmarked it and closed the tab, thumbing mindlessly. That’s when he got a text from Chen.

Why did he keep getting interrupted?

He opened the message. It was a link, followed by a brief blurb of text.

_idk if you’ve seen this one but it looks like something you’d be into._

Curious, Tao clicked on the link and watched as it pulled him to a fanfic he hadn’t read before. He skimmed the summary.

_Another pwp kids. I really think I’m going to hell for this one._

_PriestAU! Taoris. Kris is a new preacher and angelic churchgoer Tao can’t stop thinking dirty thoughts about him. Smut in a confessional booth. Need I say more?_

Already warm and just a pinch embarrassed, Tao swiped back to his messages and typed up a quick reply to Chen, not bothering to question the vocalist’s antics. 

_thx_

_~*~_

It was a one-shot, but longer than the usual, and Tao ended up on his back, legs thrown over the side of the couch, fully absorbed. Priest—no, sorry, _Father—_Kris had just finished eating Tao out and was prepping to enter Tao’s virginal hole when someone clapped a hand on Tao’s leg in real-time. Tao, panicking, let out a yelp and dropped his phone on his face. After bruising his nose, the phone slid off his face, bounced off of the couch and onto the floor. Face-up. Tao flung out a hand, grappling for it, and Luhan just sort of watched it all go down, a weird look of amusement on his face.

“Why so jumpy, Taozi?” Luhan teased. “What’re you doing?”

“Nothing anymore,” Tao bit back, sour. 

Luhan nodded, pleased. “Good, so you can help make dinner.”

“Well, no—”

“Up up.” Luhan pushed his legs off the armrest and tugged at his wrist, easing Tao up with a surprising amount of strength. Baffled, Tao helped Luhan and pushed himself up. “You’ll be in charge of setting the table.”

Not the most exciting of tasks, but definitely the least strenuous. He followed Luhan over and begrudgingly put down utensils, sauces, placemats, and the works. Chanyeol eyed him enviously from his spot over at the stove.

Dinner was a bit quieter than usual. Suho made up most of the conversation, trying to drag people into small-talk about the weather. Tao had his phone open on his lap, inching his way through the fic from earlier as he pretended to pay attention to what Kyungsoo had to say about the incoming rain.

Sehun peered over his shoulder every so often, clearly bored. He couldn’t eat much with the bandage stretching over his jaw. He chewed slow, too slow, and drank too much. Several times, Tao forgot the bandage was there, and when he glanced at Sehun out of the corner of his eye, he nearly screamed. Nearly. He didn’t, which he was immensely glad for.

Some people, like Chanyeol, weren’t so lucky.

The clean-up crew was haunted by Sehun, who was enjoying terrifying his fellow members far too much. He’d lurk around corners or behind the pantry door, waiting for some poor sap to notice him. Each time he spooked someone, he’d be grinning maniacally, something wild and dark in his eyes.

Chanyeol had been the only one who’d actually screamed so far, but as Sehun insisted, “The night’s still young.”

“Stop saying that,” Tao snapped.

Sehun tsked. “Better be ready, Taozi. I might just have to stand over your bed in the middle of the night.”

“Please don’t,” Tao said, but when Sehun didn’t stop leering, Tao started to panic. “Sehun. Please don’t. _Sehun.”_

Stand over Tao’s bed in the middle of the night, Sehun did. Tao woke up and yelled something garbled and definitely not appropriate for children, kicking Sehun in the shins. Cackling, Sehun pointed a finger at Tao in the dark.

“Ha!” Arm wrapped around his torso, Sehun embodied the epitome of ill-intended mirth. “Pussy. I told you I was going to.”

Instead of feeding into Sehun’s freakish idea of entertainment, Tao rolled out of bed and stomped out into the hallway. He wasn’t in the mood for this. Hadn’t been earlier when Sehun suggested it. He knocked on the first door he came to and waited, only startling slightly when Suho answered. 

“What’s wrong, Tao?” The EXO-K leader rubbed at his sleepy eyes, voice a low whisper. 

Tao pouted. “Sehun woke me up so he could scare me.”

What had once been a content, although tired, expression contorted into one of disappointment. “Of course he did.” Suho shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Here, I’ll get Kris to swap with you.”

Not exactly what Tao wanted. Suho whispered into the dark of his room, summoning forth Kris, who looked a lot less tired. In fact, he didn’t even look like he’d been asleep. 

“What?” Kris asked, only now noticing Tao in the doorway.

“Sehun’s being a menace. Switch with Tao for the night.”

Tao figured it’d be too much to ask to cuddle with Kris two nights in a row, so he forced a yawn in place of a not-so-subtle groan. Kris nodded and pushed past, ruffling Tao’s hair on his way out. With a slow wave of an arm, Suho gestured him inside before promptly climbing back into bed.

And then, Suho was out.

Feeling a little like he didn’t belong there, Tao tip-toed to Kris’s vacated bed and slipped under the covers, instantly shivering at the residual warmth.

Kris had just been here. Obviously. But, like, _Kris had just been here._

Smiling like a weirdo in the dark, Tao buried his cheek into the pillow and curled up on his side. He took a deep breath to calm himself down and ended up with a lungful of Kris instead.

This was almost worse than snuggling with the real guy, because now, Tao had nothing holding him back from utterly losing his mind. Because now Kris was in _his _bed, and if Tao was lucky, he’d go to bed the next night embraced by the smell of _Kris._

Fuck. He needed to get it together.


	6. The Twilight Zone (but not really)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we've got another chapter! hope everyone's classes are going well so far!

That night, Tao dreamt.

In his dream, several people in blood-red cloaks stood in a circle. One of them held a chain with Tao on the other end. He was on his knees, hands bound behind his back. He was pleading for them to let him go.

The one holding him and another one, both faceless and daunting under the drooping hoods, pushed him forward. They manhandled him onto a long table, surrounded him with lit candles and tied him down. Tao was calling for someone, but he didn’t know who. Begged for them to let him go. A third figure approached him with a knife. Didn’t cut the restraints, but cut open his clothes, tore them off like tissue paper, and started digging into his flesh with the cold metal blade. Sliced open his forearms and watched him bleed out onto the floor. Carved into his stomach a sigil. 

The figure backed away after collecting some of his blood into a small wooden bowl. He couldn’t see what the hooded figure did with it. Several of the red cloaks began chanting in a language Tao didn’t understand. He pleaded one last time for them to release him, for them to spare him, but they didn’t listen. 

It was too late.

A large, hulking shadow began to form above him, particles swarming into a new presence. Wings, sharp and batlike, hovered over him, shielding him from watching eyes. A face gazed down at him coolly. 

A new voice, this one familiar, rumbled something foreign. A clawed hand reached down and stroked the side of his face. Impassive. Uncaring. Tao was going to die.

Then something thick and pulsing entered him, ripping him apart, and if Tao wasn’t so distracted by how _good _it felt, he’d be crying in pain. He clutched at the demon’s arms, gasping into Kris’s mouth, blood rushing out of his body and leaving him dizzy and breathless. Hazy with lust. A forked tongue licked into his mouth, silencing his screams and pleas.

He came with an overwhelming shudder, eyes rolling into the back of his head, feeling so warm and _full—_

Tao woke with a start, arms hugging the pillow. Sunlight hailed on his back. A soft breeze ruffled his hair, leaking through from the open window. The room was quiet. He was alone.

Blinking away sleep, Tao dug through his consciousness, struggling to make sense of the fading dream. He pushed his forehead into the sheets, groaning. 

Dream Tao got sacrificed to demon Kris, and they fucked on an altar while Tao bled to death.

Fascinating. That’s a new one. He’d never seen _that _in the fics before.

Then he remembered where he was. This wasn’t his bed. Sehun wasn’t slumped over on the other side of the room, texting him vulgar things. Tao pushed himself up and rubbed at his eyes. He reached over to the nightstand, fumbling for his phone, before he remembered he left it in his room when he made a mad dash last night.

A clock on the dresser against the back wall told Tao it was ten-fourteen in the morning.

“Fuck!” he whisper-hissed. That was late even for him. A little voice at the back of his mind told him he needed to get up, needed to clear out. This wasn’t his bed. Kris might need to come in at some point.

_Kris._

Here Tao was, swaddled in Kris’s bed, clutching Kris’s pillow as though it were the man himself. Phoneless, Sehunless, Tao felt like he was in the soft, hazy bubble of a dream. No disturbances. No distractions. If he really put his mind to it, closed his eyes and breathed in deep, he could pretend that he woke up after a night of spooning with Kris, the older having left moments before to get a shower. Tao would’ve mumbled into Kris’s shoulder, pleading with him not to go, and Kris would oblige at first, fingers playing with the hair at Tao’s neck. Then he’d get up, say something about how they need to get up and face the music, but he’d let Tao sleep in just a little longer. Tao would be tired, after all, and maybe a little sore, because there isn’t a night that passes where Tao doesn’t ask his daddy nicely for a ride on his dick.

Tao was busy imagining the possibilities when the door opened with a soft click. He didn’t notice it at first, wrapped up in fantasy.

“Oh, you’re awake.”

Still a little sleep-dazed, Tao rolled over and peered up from behind the pillow at Kris. He smiled down at Tao, all soft and content, water droplets slipping from his hair to his neck, dripping, dripping, all the way down his abdomen to the towel wrapped around his waist. 

_Am I in the Twilight Zone?_ For a moment, Tao was convinced his fantasy was reality. His lips curled into a hazy smile and he blinked half-lidded eyes at the object of his desires. “Hey.”

“You slept in late,” Kris continued, bedroom door shutting behind him. He walked in casually, unaware of Tao’s lingering gaze on his back. “Everyone else got up two hours ago.”

“Yeah?”

Kris approached the dresser and rifled through. “Yeah. Suho took most of them to the gym. He was going to wake you up, but I told him to let you sleep.”

“Thanks,” Tao said. He forced himself upright but kept the comforter over his lap hugging his hips. The dream left him a little hot and bothered, and now, with Kris standing four feet away in nothing but a towel? Fuck. “Did you go?”

A nod. “I came back early, though. I didn’t want to leave you alone.”

_Alone._

“Is everyone at the gym?”

Kris shook his head, glancing back at Tao. “No, Sehun’s here. Luhan’s in charge of him until everyone gets back.”

Tao snorted. No wonder he’d been able to sleep this long. Sehun was too busy making grabby hands at Luhan to do anything menacing. “Did he ever go to sleep?”

“Yeah, but it took him forever,” Kris replied, voice dry. “He was on his phone for half the night. Then your phone kept going off. Chen kept sending you links.”

Tensing, Tao poked at a wrinkle in the comforter. “Did you look?”

“Only because he wouldn’t stop. There was what, a dozen links? All to the same website. I didn’t click on anything, though.”

And _wow_, that's a relief.

“R-right.” Tao swallowed. “Cool.”

Instead of replying, Kris got dressed. Tao shot his eyes away, cheeks aflame, when the towel began to fall. When he felt gutsy enough to sneak a glance, Kris had a pair of black boxer briefs on.

_Fuck._

Tao pretended he didn’t just eye-fuck the outline of Kris’s dick and cleared his throat, wondering just what the hell he was supposed to do now. 

“What is archive of our own, anyway?” Kris asked, giving Tao the fright of his life.

Barking out the fakest laugh he’d ever heard, Tao babbled out an answer. “Uh, just this fansite Sehun showed me, it’s just where fans post stuff about things. Yeah.”

Kris huffed a laugh and eyed Tao. “Wanna try that again?”

“It’s—it’s fanfiction,” Tao blurted. “Fanfiction.”

“Oh, got it,” Kris said, and Tao honestly wasn’t sure how he was expecting Kris to react, but it certainly wasn’t this. “Isn’t that just when people write freaky sex stuff about Shrek or something?”

Yeah, Kris swerved way out of lane and had Tao panicking for another reason. Tao may be a horny little fuck, but that didn’t mean he wanted Kris thinking he was into actual _weird _shit. “Uh, well, sometimes, but usually not.”

“Chen wasn’t sending you Shrek stuff, was he?” Kris said, for some reason, mildly irked. 

“N-no,” Tao shot back, defensive. “No, he wasn’t.”

“He better not.” Kris grumbled the words under his breath, but Tao caught them, suddenly feeling warm again. He rubbed his tongue piercing against the roof of his mouth absentmindedly. 

Tao shook his head again. “He wasn’t,” he repeated, putting more force behind the words. “I don’t read that.” 

A beat. Kris, now fully dressed, hair still damp, approached the bed and sat down beside Tao, awfully close to the slight boner Tao was trying desperately to hide.

“But you do read?” Kris clarified. His gaze flickered, searching Tao’s eyes for answers. “Fanfiction.”

“Y-yeah.” 

When Kris didn’t reply, eyes boring into Tao’s, Tao got this hot, prickling feeling at his core. His fingers flexed in the fabric of the sheets. Metal rolled against the roof of his mouth. Heat. 

He craved it.

“I—I only started reading it a couple days ago. Sehun sent me a link to something and told me to look at it. It—I’m—it’s weird,” Tao blurted. “It’s making me lose my mind.”

Kris frowned. “How?”

“I-I don’t know. I can’t _focus _on anything else. I’m always hot. I’m acting weird, and people have noticed. I just—I’m so _horny, _Kris, it’s not even funny.”

The frown faded; Kris’s eyebrows rose ever so slightly.

“Sehun and Baek offered to get me off and I thought it would help but it didn’t. It made things worse. I’m—I’m doing things I shouldn’t be doing,” Tao admitted, dropping his gaze, thinking to the impulsive piercings, to the new dent in his wallet. “I just—I need—”

_I need you to fuck it out of me, daddy._

Tao clamped his mouth shut, teeth clicking audibly. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes and he stared into the sheets, willing them to swallow him whole.

It took a few minutes for Kris to respond. “What are you reading, Taozi?” The question was low, careful, trepid. Kris didn’t move from his spot on the bed. Tao wondered if he was even breathing. If this conversation, the way they were sitting, the quiet of this room, he wondered if any of it was real.

Biting the inside of his cheek, Tao shook his head, embarrassed and ashamed. He sat tense, afraid to move. This weird pressure, the tension of Kris finding out his dirty secrets and yanking them out into the open, had him more aroused than before, and Tao wanted to cry. Did cry.

“Tao,” Kris tried again. He was trying to get Tao to look at him, but Tao wouldn’t, couldn’t. Not with the ache building in his heart, in his core. “It can’t be that bad.”

“It is,” Tao assured him between sniffles, voice cracking. “You’ll hate me.”

Kris frowned. Reached forward and nudged Tao’s chin up with his hand, forcing Tao to look at him. “I could never hate you, Tao.”

Tao blinked. Heard the words but didn’t quite _hear _them. He felt guilty for wanting so much of someone who had already given him so much. He wanted to hug Kris, hide in his hold, because if he admitted to his sins, it may be the last time he ever got to. No more movie cuddles. No more concerned eyes, caring words. No more obvious favoritism from Kris, regardless of Tao pretending it didn’t exist.

But he owed Kris _something. _Owed him some version of the truth. 

And yet.

No matter how hard he tried to force the words out, they wouldn’t come. He attempted, really, to air his dirty laundry, but the piercing in his tongue felt too heavy, the blood rushing in his head too loud. 

So he opted not to speak. Held out his hand expectantly. Luckily, Kris caught on and fumbled for his phone, conjuring it out of nowhere and handing it to Tao.

Thumbs hovering over the screen, Tao hesitated only for a moment, before he typed in the website he began to recognize too well. He dug around the forum, found EXO, and set the tags. 

Part of him hated the fact that he’d read the top three highest rated fics, but the other part of him thrived in the heat coursing through his system, imagination conjuring the exact scenes those fics provided. Readjusting, Tao pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his mouth in his arm. He handed Kris the phone back and fisted his hair with his other hand. 

Then he waited. 

And waited.

And waited.

Eventually, the quiet grew to be too much. Tao peeked at Kris and exclaimed, “Can you say something? Please?”

“This… is porn. About us. The two of us.” Kris didn’t look at him, eyes stuck on the screen. “This is what you’ve been reading.”

Tao groaned, face turning so red he could’ve sworn he had a fever. “You hate me, don’t you?”

“No, actually,” Kris said, glancing at Tao briefly. “I’m more disappointed.”

Somehow, that was even worse. Tao whimpered. “I’m sorry, I’ll stop, it’s weird I know, it’s all Sehun’s fucking fault—” Excuses spilled out of his mouth, dam burst, and he tried to cover his tracks, bury his shame. His tongue felt too big in his mouth. 

“I’m disappointed that you didn’t tell me sooner,” Kris clarified, which shut Tao up real fast.

Tao nearly bit his tongue in shock. “W-what?” He couldn’t breathe. Didn’t even bother trying to hide behind his knees. Heat. Heat. Heat.

“You’ve been keeping too many secrets, Taozi,” Kris began, and Tao froze, blood rushing south, head light, dizzy. _Fuck. _“You’ve been bad, haven’t you?”

_Oh shit. Oh, fuck. _

Out of everything that could’ve happened, Tao had to admit, this was a nice surprise. 

“Y-yeah,” Tao breathed, still lingering in disbelief. Was this really happening? Was he reading this right? “Real bad.” A pause. Voice an octave higher, nervous. “_Daddy.”_

Now, Tao knew full well he had an overactive imagination, but he could’ve sworn he heard Kris _growl. _Whether he did or didn’t mattered little, because the gentle nudge on his Tao’s chin had turned into a tight grip, forcing Tao to face Kris, sins now bare.

“Tell me.” Kris’s gaze was dark, hungry. Everything and more than Tao imagined. “Tell me how you’ve been bad.”

Loaded question. Tao set his hand in the space between them and started counting things off. “Read porn about daddy without telling him, got off thinking about daddy without telling him, let Sehun and Baekhyun play with me in the shower, ran away and got piercings—”

“Piercings? Plural?” Kris interrupted, persona faltering to stare at Tao in disbelief.

Tao offered a bashful glance. “Um, yeah. Six, actually.”

“Six?!” Kris gaped. “Didn’t that _hurt?”_

“Yeah, and they still do,” Tao huffed. “When Chen ran over and hugged me when I got home, I nearly cried.” 

Kris opened his mouth to speak, but stopped, suddenly scanning Tao’s face. Angling Tao’s head so Kris could search. “You already had the ears, right?”

“Mhmm,” Tao hummed.

A pause. “So, where are they?”

Tao scoffed. “I’m not just going to tell you!” Then, quieter: “If you wanna know so bad, find them.”

“Are you—”

The door opened. Kris retracted his hand from Tao’s chin and Tao flung himself back, hitting the wall. Suho stared at them with a raised eyebrow, decked from head to toe in workout clothes.

“Morning, Tao,” he greeted, slightly out of breath. “Sleep well?”

He nodded, shoving out thoughts of his dream from the night before.

“How was the gym?” Kris asked.

Suho shrugged, shuffling around the room and picking out some clothes. “Fine. We got a good crunch in. Shame you couldn’t have stayed longer.”

Chuckling, Kris waved a hand. “Yeah, yeah. You going to shower?”

“Yeah. We’re going to order some lunch once everyone’s ready. Anything sound good to you guys?” Towel and change of clothes in hand, Suho inched toward the door. “Xiumin put up a good argument for pizza.”

“Pizza’s great,” Tao said, waiting for Suho to _leave. _Kris nodded in agreement. 

Suho grinned and gave them a thumbs up. “Cool. I’ll be down in a bit.” Then he left.

Tao stared at the shut door, making up his mind. “I need to go get dressed.”

“Tao,” Kris called. Tao turned back to him, curious. “Are we good?”

A beat. Tao smiled and nodded, blushing. “Yeah, we’re good.” He slid off the bed and hurried out, worried that if he’d waited, looked back at Kris like he so badly wanted to, that he’d change his mind and never leave the warmth of Kris’s bed.

~*~

“Wow. You’re alive.”

Sehun was alone in the room when Tao got back, and the bandages had been removed. Five angry red gashes ran across Sehun’s face, eye swollen and lip cut. He looked significantly better than he had the day before, when he was dripping in blood with craze in his eyes. 

“Yeah, surprisingly, after you’d almost killed me last night,” Tao bit back. 

A snort. “I couldn’t miss that chance. You should’ve seen your face.”

Irritation prickling at his nerves, Tao flung a leg out and bumped Sehun in the shin. Sehun tried to whack him back, but Tao was fast and all Sehun hit was air. “Bitch. Trying to hurt the wounded, huh?”

“Get over it, you’re fine.”

“How am I supposed to woo Luhan without my beautiful face?” Sehun countered. When Tao scoffed, Sehun nodded. “Exactly. Don’t make this worse for me.”

Without warning, Tao started to strip, trying to find something semi-decent to wear. Sehun rolled over and groaned, phone glued to his hand. When Tao finished getting dressed, he sat on the edge of his bed and thumbed through his notifications, flicking past the swarm of links from Chen.

“Did Chen even sleep last night?”

Sehun grunted. “How am I supposed to know? Duizhang practically shackled me to the room. I couldn’t do anything without him glaring at me from over there.” He flung a dramatic hand out, then whirled around to face Tao, a smirk growing on his lips. “How was that, by the way?”

“How was what?” Tao asked, feigning ignorance.

“Sleeping in your daddy’s bed. Did you do anything naughty?”

Abashed, Tao scowled at Sehun. “Fuck no. Suho was there.”

“Oh, is that the only reason you didn’t, then?”

“Where are those pain killers, again? Is it too early to give you your next dosage?”

Another groan and Sehun rolled around on his bed again, colliding into the wall. “Luhan hid them from me. He put himself in charge of my medication. What if I’m in severe pain?”

“I’m sure you can manage,” Tao drawled.

“Whatever. He said he was going to be back to check on me, so.”

Tao set his phone down on his bed and eyed Sehun knowingly. “Are you going to make a move on him?”

“I already tried. He thinks the pills are making me delusional.”

Whistling, Tao breached the distance between beds and gave Sehun a hefty pat on the leg. “Poor thing,” he teased.

There was a knock on the door. Kyungsoo opened it without waiting for a response and peered inside. “We’re ordering pizza. Requests?”

“Meat lover’s,” Sehun blurted.

Tao waved dismissively. “I’ll eat whatever.”

“Okay.” Then Kyungsoo was gone. He left the door open much to Tao’s annoyance, but he figured now that he was dressed he should just go downstairs and wait. Sehun didn’t indicate he was going to move anytime soon, so Tao ditched him for the multitude of voices downstairs.


	7. Confession (by Kai)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy belated valentine's day everyone, here's some long-awaited content!
> 
> also, i'm not sure if any of you are NCT fans, but this comeback looks so dope!

“I have a confession to make.”

Chen stood up from his spot at the table, setting down his half-eaten pizza on his plate. Several heads turned. Chen looked a mix between embarrassed and proud.

“Recently, I revealed to a few of my fellow members that I write fanfiction,” Chen began, causing Tao’s gut to drop. He jerked his head up and flung an arm out at Sehun, who was already paying attention. “Full disclosure, I admitted that I wrote smut between Chanyeol and Baekhyun.”

Across the table, Chanyeol frowned, not quite understanding. “What’s smut?”

Chen steamrolled right over him. “I lied.”

A gasp. No one knew where it came from. 

“I don’t _only _write Chanbaek smut,” Chen continued, smirk growing. “I write freaky incest smut for Sehun and Luhan, too.”

Sehun stopped chewing, eyes wide and eying Chen with something akin to appreciation. Luhan, on the other hand, like Chanyeol, completely missed the point. “But, Chen, Sehunnie and I aren’t related.”

“What’s smut?!” Chanyeol repeated, starting to panic.

“That’s not all.” Chen propped his hands on his hips and overlooked the attentive group. “I have a long-running series about Kyungsoo being a camboy.”

A cough. Kyungsoo blinked owlishly, face heating. “Me?”

“I’m sorry, let’s take a step back,” Suho interrupted, hand up. “Chen, can you tell us what the hell you’re talking about?”

“Fanfiction is fan-produced work about tv shows, books, movies, bands. You name it. They’re stories. So, if someone—like myself—wrote a story about us, EXO, that’d be fanfiction,” Chen explained. He turned to Chanyeol and added, “Smut is the term fans use for porn.”

Chanyeol’s jaw dropped. “People write porn about us?!”

“Yeah, and a lot of it’s about you, so congrats,” Chen drawled.

Brows pulling together, Suho glanced around the table. “Is this what’s been going on? How many of you are involved in this, uh, fanmail thing?”

“Fan_fiction,_” Baekhyun corrected, almost snooty, and raised a hand. 

Tao, Sehun, and Kai hesitantly raised their hands as well. Weirdly enough, Xiumin did too. The five of them looked to him in alarm, and he shrugged.

“I don’t go out of my way to find it,” Xiumin explained. “Sometimes it just finds me.”

Luhan looked mildly abashed, offended his best friend had a secret he didn’t know about.

“You _all _write fanfiction about us?” Suho asked.

Sehun shook his head. “I just read.”

Several people who didn’t quite get what was happening glanced between each other. Tao made the mistake of meeting Kris’s eye. He cast his gaze aside, mouth clamped shut. 

Then Baekhyun stood up. “I, too, have a confession to make.” He drummed his fingers against the tabletop. “I… may have commissioned some artists to create explicit fanart. For us.”

Sehun’s finger shot out, pointing at Baekhyun. “So that’s how you knew about the ships?”

“The what?” Chanyeol asked.

Baekhyun nodded. “Yeah, I did some research.”

Suho pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed deeply. “Do they—the artists, do they know it was you—”

“I’m not _that _stupid. And all the art is hidden on a flashdrive, which is also hidden,” Baekhyun said. “It’s fine, see?”

“Oh, shit, is that what that was?” Lay asked, blinking back to consciousness. “In the Ziploc bag in the tank of the fourth toilet?”

Mouth hanging open, Baekhyun took a moment to respond. “Uh—”

“I was looking for somewhere to put my weed stash,” Lay explained, causing Suho’s shoulders to hike up, spine rigid. “It’s still there.”

“Great,” Baekhyun sighed. “Thanks for announcing it to the peanut gallery.”

“Is there anything, _anything else, _that people need to get out in the open?” Suho forced out. The pizza sat in the middle of the twelve of them, long-forgotten. “Literally anything.”

A moment of silence, then—

“I got a tongue piercing,” Tao blurted, at the same time Sehun shot up and said, “I let myself get attacked by the raccoon for attention.”

“I have a copy of the Satanic Bible under my bed,” Kyungsoo admitted.

Kai next. “I got really drunk a year ago and accidentally stabbed someone.”

“I have a sex tape.” Luhan. His hands covered his face like a mask.

The words hung heavy in the air, silence deafening. Suho, a man weathered from the perils of war, stared numbly at the table. “Chanyeol? Xiumin? Kris? Do you three wish to add anything?”

Xiumin shook his head. “Nope, I’m good.”

Kris, too, denied, but his gaze burned into Tao’s face, trying to catch his eye. 

“I, uh…” Chanyeol cleared his throat. “I pirated _Night at the Museum 2._”

That, out of all things, was Suho’s final straw. Instead of exploding in leaderly rage, Suho got up from the table and wandered over to a kitchen cupboard. He reached in, moved some plates around, and pulled out a partial bottle of hard whiskey. After another heavy sigh, Suho uncapped it and drank straight from the bottle.

It came back down onto the counter with a loud thud and he turned his gaze back to them, the eleven walking headaches. “Nobody,” he began, “_nobody, _speaks a word about _any _of this.”

The rest of the lunch was eaten in less than comfortable quiet.

~*~

Since Tao missed the gym run this morning, he slipped down to the practice room that afternoon and dragged out a portable punching bag from the garage. It wasn’t ideal, and using it always made Tao feel a little bloodied and bruised. He preferred equipping his wushu stick, but he unfortunately left it upstairs and honestly? After that bout at lunch, Tao just needed to be alone.

He started out with some stretches. Nothing too complicated. Then he wrapped his hands and flexed his fingers, taking a few deep breaths to prep himself. It’d been too long since he’d last done this.

_Thwump._

The first hit always sent a shock through his system, adrenaline revving. One after another, his fists hit the red bag. After he got in a few kicks, he let himself daydream.

This time, he and Kris were watching a movie in the living room, much like a couple nights ago. It was just them, though. The other members were either out or asleep. Tao didn’t give it much thought.

They sat close to each other, Tao pressed up against Kris’s side. The same navy blanket draped them like snow. An old eighties adventure movie played on the television, volume turned low. Tao turned to Kris and blinked up at him, silently asking for attention, and Kris leaned down and kissed him.

Drums from the jungle movie thrummed as they made out on the couch, slow and sweet, taking their time. Kris pulled Tao onto his lap and ran his hands down Tao’s sides, fingers skimming the piercings embedded in his back. Tao, putty in Kris’s hands, shoved his fingers into the others’ blond hair, moaning softly into the kiss. 

“Taozi,” Kris whispered, pulling back and interrupting the angry chatter from the tv. He smiled at Tao in adoration. Infatuation. “Can I tell you a secret?”

Curious, Tao nodded, hands falling to Kris’s shoulders. 

And Kris leaned closer. Brought Tao against him in a hug, breath ghosting over the shell of Tao’s ear. “_I love you.”_

Tao’s fist swung wildly off par and he lost his balance, swaggering to the side in an attempt to find his footing. Face aflame, suddenly hot—but not the hot and bothered kind of hot, more bashful, shivering in pure _oh my god _glee—Tao sunk to his knees and leaned against the punching bag, hand pressed to his mouth. 

It’d been a hot minute since Tao had pictured Kris doing or saying anything not explicitly sexual, so the idea that—that—

Tao slid off the bag and pressed his back to the floor, legs bent at the knee, eyes staring past the blinding ceiling lights. 

He’d had a crush on Kris for _forever. _It wasn’t like Tao hadn’t imagined Kris saying something like before, and Kris had, but in that we’re-in-this-together platonic way, but in _that _way—the real, actual _feelings _way—

Alone and feeling properly off-kilter, Tao laughed into the empty room.

~*~

Sehun found him on the practice room floor twenty minutes later. Tao hadn’t moved much, apart from the occasional roll from side to side. He kept replaying that moment in his head, kept trying to hear Kris saying those words over and over again. He’d been in the middle of giggling like a schoolgirl when the door opened and Sehun waltzed in. The maknae strolled in and didn’t stop until he was standing directly above Tao, watching the other with amusement written on his face.

“Hey, Taozi,” Sehun greeted.

“Hey,” Tao said back, all out of breath and giggly.

“You got a minute?”

Tao pushed himself up and nodded, trying so hard to wipe the grin off his face. “Uh, yeah. What’s up?”

“I need your help with something.” Sehun squatted beside him and glanced at the practice room door. “But you have to keep it a secret.”

“Bitch, you think I can’t keep a secret?” Tao asked, slightly offended.

Sehun held up his hands. “Tao, I know you can. You’re like, my best friend for a reason.”

Tao’s slight scowl dropped. “I’m your best friend?”

“Duh, who else? I literally asked Suho to let me room with you,” Sehun said.

“Oh my god,” Tao blurted, arms shooting out to tug Sehun into a haphazard hug. Sehun almost fell at least thrice but he patted Tao’s back, huffing a laugh. “You’re my best friend, too.”

“I better be,” Sehun snorted. “I don’t think anyone else could put up with you the way I do.”

“Shut up and let me enjoy this.”

Sehun pulled back a moment later and nodded curtly. “Right, so. I need your help.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Luhan said he has a sex tape,” Sehun began, and Tao internally groaned. Of fucking course. He should’ve seen this coming, but Sehun ambushed him with the whole BFF thing, and Tao was already giddy from the daydream. It all just kind of spiraled out of control and left Tao grinning like an idiot. “I want to find it.”

Tao frowned. “Are we sure it’s even still, you know, _out there?”_

“That’s the thing,” Sehun sighed. “I don’t know. I did a little bit of searching but there’s no way I’d be able to find it that quickly, right? That’d be too easy.”

“Well, yeah.”

“So I thought, between the two of us, we might make more progress. And then I thought, there’s an easier way to do this.”

Already dreading what Sehun was going to say, Tao raised an eyebrow and remained silent.

Sehun was getting too into it, hands waving this way and that, making obscene gestures that Tao didn’t quite understand, nor did he want to. “If I ask Luhan directly, he’ll shut up. But if I ask Luhan for help regarding my _own _sex tape, he’ll want to help the poor maknae, right?”

Tao froze. Stared at Sehun. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, I’m serious, alright.”

“You could get in _mad _trouble,” Tao reminded him.

Sehun didn’t care. “Not if no one knows.”

“Sehun, there are thousands of fans out there who study the details of your body like it’s their life work, I don’t know how you’d get away with not a single person noticing.”

“I know. I know this,” Sehun said, but Tao didn’t believe him, not with that mirthful glimmer in his eyes. “So we’ll be careful. Literally, I just need you to help me… not look like me.”

Shaking his head, Tao stumbled over his words. “This is a bad idea. I don’t—how am I—”

“We need to make a late-night errand, that’s all,” Sehun assured him. 

“No, fuck, no, we can’t go back there,” Tao groaned.

“Come _on, _Tao. I just need like, a costume, or a bodysuit or _something._”

Tao balked. “Is aiming the camera away from your face not enough for you?!”

“You literally just said people might recognize my body—”

“Yeah, but, I’m not—Sehun, if you buy one of those bodysuits I _will not _be able to sleep at night.”

Sehun snorted. “It’s just another excuse for you to go nut in duizhang’s bed.”

Flushing a bright, vibrant red, Tao covered his eyes and groaned. “Please don’t say that.”

The reminder that Tao had to sleep in Kris’s bed last night brought memories from this morning rushing forth. Tao’s embarrassment and fear over being discovered, Kris being into it and expressing interest in _Tao, _Tao calling him daddy and telling him just how bad he’d been—

“Why can’t you just film yourself jerking off like a normal person,” Tao grumbled, glaring at Sehun between his fingers. 

“I’m a _dom,_ Tao, you wouldn’t understand. I can’t have Luhan thinking I’m a bottom.”

Tao jerked, gaping. “Fuck you too, asshole. Shouldn’t you find some poor sucker to fuck, then?”

“Great idea! Are you volunteering? I was going to ask Baekhyun, but—”

“Ask Baekhyun,” Tao cut him off. “I’m saving myself.”

Kris also kind of told him not to fuck around with other people, so.

Sehun didn’t question it, only groaned. “Whatever. You’re on filming duty, though.”

Huffing, Tao reluctantly accepted the position and got to his feet. He held out his hand for Sehun and Sehun took it, nearly yanking Tao back to the floor in the process. Sehun only laughed at his misfortune and started moving the punching bag back to where it came from.

“Wait, are we leaving now?”

A roll of Sehun’s eyes. “Not right away. You reek, take a fucking shower. I’m gonna go ask Baekhyun about it. If he’s down, we’ll go back to that store. I need to pick up some stuff.”

“More stuff? Did you not pick things up yesterday?”

Sehun shrugged. “I mean, not really, unlike you, who apparently felt the need to stock up.”

“Look, while you and Kai were busy taste-testing the lube, I treated myself. It’s called _self-care, _and it’s in, so.” Tao crossed his arms and scowled. “Whatever. We just have to—”

“Be ‘smart,’ I know. And we will. Go take your shower,” Sehun interrupted, waving him off. He backed out of the practice room, punching bag in arms, leaving Tao to his own devices.

~*~

Sehun apparently couldn’t wait to tell Tao the news. He stood outside the shower and didn’t say a word until the water turned off, thoroughly scaring the absolute shit out of Tao.

“Good news and bad news.” This is when Tao let out a very manly yelp, definitely not out of fear. “Good news, Baekhyun’s in. We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready.”

“Fucking hell,” Tao huffed, clutching his chest. He towel-dried hurriedly and fumbled with his clothes, paranoid that Sehun was going to barge into the small changing space and see more than Tao was willing to show.

“Bad news,” Sehun continued. “Suho overheard we were going shopping again, and he’s not too happy about it, so he’s sending a chaperone with us.”

Tao groaned.

“Yeah, right, but here’s where it gets worse.” Tao could _hear _the smirk in Sehun’s voice. “Suho doesn’t currently have the patience to deal with us, and the responsible squad is busy cleaning the living area, so he’s making Kris come with us.”

Here, Tao stopped breathing.

“He’s what,” Tao repeated.

“Yeah, Kris has no idea what’s going on. But he agreed to come with, so. Honestly, it could be worse,” Sehun admitted. “He probably won’t give too much of a shit.”

Yeah, maybe not, had it been five days ago. Unbeknownst to Sehun and Baekhyun, Kris _knew _where they were yesterday. Kris knew far more than he really should. Tao would’ve regretted telling the EXO-M leader so much had it not gotten him right where he wanted. 

“Hey, Sehun,” Tao started warily, mouth running dry. 

“What?”

“There’s something I didn’t tell you.”

A pause. “You better spill if it’s important.”

“It’s important.”

Sehun yanked open the door to the changing space to Tao’s alarm and stepped in, shutting the door behind him. Luckily, Tao had his shirt and boxers on, but he hadn’t quite gotten to his pants yet. Sehun didn’t seem to care much. Tao didn’t really care either. 

He cared about the conversation, though, and he lowered his voice. Held up his hand and extended his pinky. “Don’t you dare tell a soul.”

Sehun wrapped his own pinky around Tao’s, miming locking his mouth with his other hand.

“So, ok, a few things, actually. Remember how I slept on the couch with Kris two nights ago?” Sehun nodded. Tao, blushing, glanced at the stall door, half expecting someone else to come in. “When we woke up, he was hard.”

“Hot damn,” Sehun whispered back.

“Yeah, but listen,” Tao continued, giddy, feeling as though they were twelve and at a sleepover. “I didn’t move, because like, _Kris’s cock, _but I didn’t know how else to react so I just sort of gaped at him and he saw my piercing and he got _harder, Sehun, _he got _harder.”_

Sehun grinned, forcing his lips shut.

“Oh! And in the middle of the night, we moved down the couch to get comfortable and he told me not to fuck around with other people,” Tao babbled, the words rushing out in a hurry. “But yeah I asked him if he liked my piercing but Kyungsoo interrupted, so when we were in the car to the sex shop I got a text from him that said yes. And at that point, I was feeling pretty good about myself so when we got to the shop I felt like teasing him and I sent him a picture of the bondage gear and asked him if there was anything he wanted.”

In awe, Sehun shook his head. “Fuck, Taozi, you got ballsy.”

“There’s more.” Tao set his towel over the hook, hands flying in explanation. “He ended up calling me and we just talked a bit but he overheard you saying I had a vibe and he asked me about it and I told him about—yeah. Stuff.

“And this morning, when I woke up, he came into the room to change after a shower and we were just talking about stuff and he seemed worried about me so I came clean and straight up told him I’d been reading porn about him.”

“You did _what,” _Sehun breathed, grabbing Tao’s shoulders.

Tao shrugged a little, blushing. “Well, I couldn’t exactly say it so I just showed him, like the tag on the fic site, you know, and he said he was disappointed, and I swear to fuck I almost cried, but he said he was disappointed _that I didn’t tell him _and he told me that he thought I’d been a bad boy.”

Sehun shivered a little. “Holy fuck.”

“Right?” Tao beamed, excited about the recent events. “If Suho didn’t interrupt, I’m not sure what would’ve happened, but like, _Sehun, _I think I’ve got him.”

“_Think?” _Sehun repeated. “You practically own him, Taozi. Job well done.” A clap to Tao’s shoulder. “Remember to tell me how that dick is.”

Tao shuffled into his skinny jeans and huffed. “Oh, you’ll be the first to hear about it, don’t worry.”

“Does anyone know?”

Shaking his head, Tao chanced a glance at Sehun. “No, and this needs to stay between us, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course. Thanks for telling me.”

Tao hummed and nodded, suddenly embarrassed now that he had nothing else to add.

“And thanks for letting me know that we can focus on how I can get Luhan, because you’re clearly on the road to success here,” Sehun continued, spinning everything back around to him, as per usual. “You can use the time at the shop to distract Kris and seduce him with bondage gear and Baekhyun and I will begin Operation: Hunhan.” 

Snorting, Tao blinked at his best friend. “Real creative.”

“We’re working on a time limit, here,” Sehun claimed. “I’m only going to be scratched and high for a few more days. I need Luhan by the end of the week.”

“And to do that…” Tao trailed off.

“I’m going to show him I’m more than baby Sehunnie,” Sehun concluded, offering a curt nod. “By forcing him to help me take down a sex tape I’m going to make with Baekhyun.”

Something about this all seemed a bit too complicated and way unnecessary, but Tao just went along for the ride, weirdly excited about sitting in the car with Kris.


	8. the gang goes shopping pt. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey everyone! hope we're all staying safe out there. i would've gotten this out to you guys sooner but unfortunately, my past couple weeks have been super hectic. like many others, my uni decided to cancel all in-person classes and switch to online-only, and boy howdy has that been a transition.
> 
> but for real though! stay safe, stay healthy, and once again, thank you all so much for reading this disaster of a fic! your comments always make my day :D 
> 
> p.s. - remember how i said this story takes place in 2013? apparently i forgot that time was a thing when writing this chapter. i am fully aware that cupcakke's iconic classic, "deepthroat," was not released until 2016, but for the sake of this story and comic relief, we will pretend otherwise.

After a bit of a verbal match between Baekhyun and Kris in which Baekhyun made the very valid argument that he actually knew where he was going, Kris gave up the keys to the van—which Suho told him strictly not to do—and climbed in the backseat with Tao. Sehun had called shotgun _and _dibs on picking the music, forcing Tao and Kris into oddly quiet company. Baekhyun muttered to himself as he pulled up the address on his phone, reminding himself how to get there.

“So, where—“ Kris was interrupted by a loud blast of music, which Sehun promptly turned down, only after the words “_Hump me, fuck me” _reverberated through the speakers. The three of them turned to face Sehun with mixed looks of confusion and mortification, and Sehun only shrugged in response.

“Hey,” Baekhyun said. They’d been sitting in silence for a minute, trying to comprehend just what the _fuck _was happening. “Have you been stalking my Spotify?”

Sehun smirked. “Maybe. Got interesting taste in music, Baek.”

“Can we maybe leave the garage, please?” Tao forced out, grimacing. 

Baekhyun muttered something under his breath and jerked the car into motion, jostling all of them as he reversed out of the garage. Sehun cleared his throat and glanced at the backseat, finally answering Kris’s cut-off question. “We’re going back to that adult store we were at yesterday.”

“Oh,” Kris said.

“Yeah, see, I’ve come up with a plan to win Luhan over,” Sehun added.

Kris just nodded. “And it involves the adult store.” The doubt hung obvious in his voice and Tao resisted the urge to laugh. 

Sehun only took this remark as an excuse to explain in full detail his plan. With each word, Kris’s expression warped more and more into something Tao couldn’t read, but it looked pretty close to mortified awe. 

“Luhan admitted he has a sex tape, right? I thought about looking for it, but that’d take too long, and it’d probably be impossible—”

“It’s not,” Kris blurted. “It’s pretty easy to find, actually, if you know what to look for.”

Even Baekhyun shot Kris a questioning look in the rearview mirror.

“I only know because I’m the leader of EXO-M,” Kris added, glancing at Tao. “He told me a while ago that it was circling around, I didn’t watch it or anything, he just didn’t know what to do—”

“Okay, well, I wish you would’ve said something sooner,” Sehun complained. “We’re still gonna do this, though.”

Kris deadpanned and nodded. 

“Anyway, I need Luhan to see me as more than some kid, so I thought what better way to do that than to make my own sex tape and ask for his help taking it down.”

Tao shook his head, exasperated. “I can think of a few better ways—”

“I already tried being honest with him and he blamed it on the pain killers,” Sehun interrupted, again, clearly not having any of it. “Then he hid them from me.”

“So, you’re making a sex tape,” Kris repeated, eyes wide, still doubtful. 

Sehun grinned. “Yep, you got it.”

“And you’re going to post it on the internet, where anyone could see it,” Kris continued. 

“I already talked to Tao about this. I have an idea to protect my identity, don’t worry.”

“Sehun, I swear, if you’re thinking about buying that fucking leather suit, I _will _cry,” Tao threatened.

Baekhyun waved a hand from the steering wheel. “I’ll keep it in my room when we’re done.”

“_Fuck, _you’re really getting it?” Tao cursed at the same time Kris frowned and uttered, “We?”

“Yeah, I’m getting the leather suit,” Sehun said decidedly. “And yeah, Kris, I’m going to fuck Baekhyun for the tape. Tao said I should just jerk it to the camera but I told him I didn’t want to look like a fucking bottom, so Baekhyun fortunately volunteered.”

Kris just blinked in disbelief. Tao groaned into his hand.

“I’m excited,” Baekhyun added, like any of them needed to know that.

A beat. Kris looked a bit confused. “Wait, so, Sehun’s going to be covered, right? What about Baek? Won’t people see him then?”

“Thanks for bringing this up,” Baekhyun said, eagerly answering. “I’ve been thinking this over, too, and I think I’m going to go with the slutty schoolgirl outfit.”

Sehun nodded approvingly. “Nice pick.”

“Yeah, and we’ll probably get a gag, too.” The two in the front spoke with such ease about the topic, they could’ve been talking about the weather. “Thoughts on a blindfold?”

Another nod from Sehun. “Tao, didn’t you buy one?”

“Um—”

“We could also just use the tie from the schoolgirl outfit,” Baekhyun suggested.

Tao’s face burned and he stared ahead at the seat in front of him, wishing desperately that the ground could swallow him whole. This really wasn’t how he imagined this car ride going, and he couldn’t decide if he was entirely uncomfortable or slightly turned on.

Probably both.

“And how are you filming this again?” Kris asked, and Tao really, really wished he hadn’t.

“Oh,” Sehun perked up. “That’s Tao’s job.”

Tao shut his eyes and willed it to be over. He could _feel _the energy in the backseat change, could sense it morph into something suffocating. Kris’s eyes burned into him.

_Sorry, daddy. Like you’ve said, I’ve been a bad boy._

“Right,” Kris said, weirdly stiff. 

“Not to be weird, but, uh.” Baekhyun glanced back at the two of them, heat in his gaze. “Audiences get me hot, so if you want to sit in, I’d be okay with it.”

In response to that, Kris let out a long, deep sigh.

~*~

The parking lot of the adult store wasn’t any fuller than it was the day before. Apart from their van, there was one car, and it most likely belonged to whoever was working cashier.

To Tao’s embarrassment, the same woman was working. She didn’t even look up when they came in, just asked if they needed help finding anything specific. Baekhyun glared at the sex swing while they passed. 

It only took them a moment to reach the back corner of the store. There, shiny skintight gear and bodysuits hung lifelessly. Sehun reached up and took the worst of the bunch: it looked like a thick, glistening morphsuit with several zippers and rings.

“This is shinier than I remembered,” Sehun muttered, fingers skimming the fabric.

“Yeah, I think there’s more spandex than leather in that thing,” Baekhyun agreed.

The woman, still not glancing up from her magazine, called back to them, “If you want to try something on, there’s a door to your left.”

A door to their left, there was. It was painted the same color as the wall and had a mirror hung on it. No sign, no nothing. Sehun boldly opened the door and walked inside.

It was a relatively large space, larger than Tao was expecting. There were a few dressing rooms and a tri-part mirror, and to their right, there was an open doorway that led to another room. From what Tao could see through the opening, there was a bed and what looked like chains attached to a wall. He averted his eyes and stared at the back of Sehun instead, watching as the maknae slipped into a dressing room and instantly started complaining.

“Fuck, this is tight. Shit. Hey, Baek—”

Baekhyun opened the dressing room door and vanished behind it, leaving Tao and Kris alone. Tao, feeling a little awkward, sat down on a circular ottoman and sighed. Kris plopped down beside him.

“So,” Kris started, instantly causing Tao to heat up. “You’re filming.”

“It was either that or get fucked,” Tao blurted. “Sehun cornered me.”

Humming, Kris watched Tao closely. “I thought I told you not to do stuff like this.”

“I’m—I’m not involved or anything, not like that—”

“Guess I’ll just have to sit in and make sure you behave,” Kris decided. Tao clammed up, face bright red.

“I’ll be good, I promise.” He wasn’t sure if Kris sitting in on this _mess _was such a good idea. It was bad enough Tao even had to be there, but now? Tao wasn’t sure if he’d even be able to breathe. “You don’t have to—”

Kris leaned over and lowered his voice, deep and rumbling in Tao’s ear. “Don’t you want your daddy there to help you? You’ll be busy with the camera, Taozi, how are you supposed to take care of yourself?”

_Oh fuck, yes daddy. Please, daddy._

“Haa, yes daddy, please help me,” Tao breathed, the words rushing out like a burst dam. Smiling, Kris pulled back and searched Tao’s eyes, just to be sure.

“Are we interrupting something?” Baekhyun had emerged from the dressing room, Sehun lurking behind him like the menace he was, breathing down Baek’s back from a small slit in the suit. His entire body was covered—including his eyes—and there was a leash around his neck. Baekhyun held the other end.

Tao felt the urge to scream bubble up in his throat but he swallowed it down. Sort of. A pathetic whine slipped out in its place and he ducked into Kris, not at all liking what he saw.

“Fuck, Sehun, can you even breathe?” Kris asked, scoffing in amusement.

“Who’s Sehun?” came out muffled from behind the spandex.

“We’ve just got a few things to grab, then we can leave, unless you two need to go be filthy in that sex dungeon over there,” Baekhyun joked, tugging at the leash. Sehun jerked a little and giggled, fucking with one of the metal rings on the suit. 

Kris wrapped a tight arm around Tao, who had turned to peek over his shoulder at the incredibly disturbing scene by now, and shook his head. “We’re fine. Get your shit and let’s go.”

The two fiends only snorted and snuck back into the changing room. From what Tao could hear, there was a bit of a scuffle and someone whacked their arm into the wall, resulting in a hissed “fuck” and a laugh. 

Kris’s arm, warm and heavy on Tao’s shoulders, didn’t move. 

~*~

Standing at the cash register for the second time in three days felt strange to Tao. This woman probably had their faces burned into her memory whether she listened to EXO or not, and now she had full knowledge of just how freaky in the sheets they were. Tao hoped she wouldn’t go onto some forum and spill all their secrets.

Then he looked at her again, really took in just how little she seemed to care, and he figured it wouldn’t be an issue.

Baekhyun smiled as she swiped each item with disinterest. Because of the two outfits (?), she gave them a much larger, much more obvious red bag that Tao desperately hoped no one in the dorm would see. Because, fuck, no thanks. 

Plus, it’d kind of ruin everything if someone—like Luhan—saw.

The bag found itself in the backseat between Kris and Tao. Sehun plugged in his phone again and played what Tao could only assume was raunchy music, but he tuned it out. Sort of. As much as he could.

Car in motion, Tao leaned against the window and thumbed through his phone. He opened a tab that he forgot about and started reading without remembering what the fic was. 

_EXO ABO AU!! This one, everyone has animal attributes!! Like Luhan has deer ears and tail and stuff lol. _

Tao sighed and switched tabs. He needed something short and smutty. He also didn’t really want to read about his members, and he didn’t want to dig for the good stuff, not right now.

New fic.

_Oooooookay guys, I wrote this one late last night and ~yikes~! Let’s just say we’re all going to hell after this one hahaa. _

He skipped most of the intro. Apparently, all of EXO was on some remote, exotic island and Tao got too close to this plant that the locals warned them about. Suho, characteristically, was pretty distressed about this and when Tao started feeling dizzy, the EXO-K leader sent Tao back to the resort. Kris was in charge of getting him there.

And Tao almost didn’t. Each passing minute, he got hotter and hotter, so hot to the point that he wrenched off his shirt and pressed his back against the cool elevator wall. By the time they got back to the room, Tao had almost stripped everything off, leaving a trail. Kris guided him to the room and sat him down on one of the beds, told Tao to _stay._

Then fic Tao started getting hornier and hornier, literally rutting against the bedsheets, gasping for breath. Kris came back into the room and gripped Tao’s hips, told him to stop, but Tao only mewled and started rutting against Kris instead. 

In the car, Tao bit the side of his finger, teeth pressing hard enough to remind him where he was, who he was with. He shifted in his seat a bit.

Around him, a bass boosted song filled the car. Kris had leaned forward to talk to the two up front. Tao took a deep breath then turned his attention back to the fic.

Story Tao practically begged Kris to fuck him, begged for Kris to make the heat and ache go away. Kris growled some obscenities in his ear and started stretching Tao, fingers slipping in and out from the sudden slick, pumping himself with his other hand. Tao mewled and moaned, pleading for more, more, _more—_

“Tao.” Hearing his name, Tao’s head shot up and his gaze flickered between Sehun and Kris, both of whom were staring at him. He blinked and shut his phone, feeling only slightly sheepish. 

“What?”

Sehun smirked. “Oh, nothing.”

Tao’s eyes widened and he felt as though he did something wrong. “_What, _Sehun?”

“You weren’t like, doing something weird back there, were you?”

He swallowed. “Don’t word it like that!” Then he glanced down self-consciously. Heat coursed through his body, but he wasn’t hard or anything. Not anymore at least. “Fuck off!”

“I was just going to tell you our plan for this evening, but it seemed you were having enough fun back there without us,” Sehun teased.

“Seriously, Sehun, if we weren’t in a car right now, I’d beat your ass.”

“So shameless, Taozi,” Kris joined in, causing Tao to heat up even more.

Burying his face behind his hands, Tao pulled up his legs and debated opening the van door and vaulting himself onto the road. “_Oh my god.”_

“What were you reading?” Kris continued, Sehun grinning wolfishly beside him. “You know, Taozi, if you want something, all you have to do is ask.”

Tao flipped them off.

Sehun laughed, but Kris’s eyes narrowed, his teasing grin turning dangerous. “_Tao.”_

A shiver. Tao avoided Kris’s gaze. “I’m—just—what did you need to tell me, again?” Fucking hell. If Tao wasn’t hot before, he definitely was now. If Kris’s tone told him anything, it was that the two of them would be having a _talk _later.

“We’re filming tonight,” Sehun said. “After everyone goes to sleep. We’re going to use our room.”

“Was that it?” Really, they interrupted him for that?

“Uh, yeah. I just thought you’d want to know.” The smirk hadn’t left. Sehun eyed him knowingly. “You’re welcome.”

Groaning, Tao tried his best to ignore the world.

~*~

At precisely eleven pm, long after the members had gone to bed, there was a knock at Sehun and Tao’s door. Sehun had already changed into the suit but left the mask off for the time being. The scratches on his face were a bit pink and made him look more flushed than he really was.

Tao had been messing around on his phone, rubbing his tongue against the roof of his mouth, metal piercing dragging against his skin. When the knock came, he was the one to get the door. Kris and Baekhyun both stood on the other side. He ushered them in and locked the door behind them. 

Baekhyun hadn’t changed yet. The schoolgirl outfit sat on Sehun’s bed in a neat stack and Baekhyun went about stripping as Tao dimmed the lights. Kris took a seat on Tao’s bed and pushed back, leaning against the wall.

“So, you’re really doing this?” Tao asked, already aware of the answer. 

“You bet your ass we are,” Baekhyun shot back, pulling up a thong underneath the plaid, pleated skirt. Sehun kneeled on the bed and pulled out the rest of their props from the bag, then he handed Tao a video camera.

“I borrowed this from Chen,” Sehun said. _Of course you did. _“I don’t want to look like a fucking amateur. He said he’ll help us upload the video tomorrow.”

Tao frowned. “You told Chen about it?”

“Yeah, he even offered me twenty bucks if I let him keep a copy for reference.”

Leaning against his bed, Tao began setting up the camera. Kris nudged him with his foot and when Tao turned, Kris patted the spot on the bed between his legs. Blushing, Tao set down the camera and climbed up, taking the suggested seat and leaning against Kris’s chest. Kris instantly wrapped an arm around Tao’s abdomen and planted his chin on Tao’s shoulder, watching in vague curiosity as Tao continued setting up the camera. 

Once dressed, Baekhyun climbed onto Sehun’s bed and reached for the ball gag.

“We’ll do this just like we talked about, ‘kay Sehunnie?” Baekhyun asked, handing Sehun the matching plaid tie. Sehun nodded, focus pulling his eyebrows downward. Baekhyun glanced over at the two of them on Tao’s bed and raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. “Start filming when Sehun gives you the go. We’ll just keep going and have Chen crop out what needs to go, so don’t worry about catching our faces at the end.”

Tao nodded and propped up a knee, balancing the camera in his hand. Kris’s other arm looped around Tao, effectively locking him in the embrace.

Baekhyun positioned himself on his hands and knees and fastened the ball gag around his head, the blindfold quickly following. Sehun tugged on the mask and untucked his cock from the suit, lubing it up. The whole scene was rather surreal and Tao almost missed the thumbs up that Sehun tossed his way. Quickly, he hit the record button and watched through the little camcorder screen as the scene unfolded in front of him.

Sehun pushed into Baekhyun’s heat and Baek moaned around the gag, arms already starting to shake. No stretching, no foreplay, no nothing. The red thong that Baekhyun had on was halfway down his thighs. Sehun gripped Baekhyun’s hips and pulled out before shoving back in. Again and again. Sehun angled himself a bit and thrust in once more, ripping out a garbled moan from Baekhyun in the process. 

Tao, trying so hard to keep the camera steady, faltered a bit when one of Kris’s hands slipped under the fabric of his t-shirt, dancing against the skin of Tao’s stomach. His fingers brushed against the piercing Tao forgot he had and he jerked a bit, accidentally jostling the camera. 

Curious, Kris reached back and poked at the metal in Tao’s belly. “Found one,” he whispered into Tao’s ear, a ripple of fire lighting his nerves. Tao pressed back against Kris, leaned his head on Kris’s shoulder, baring his neck. Kris’s other hand dipped, fingers rubbing at the skin in Tao’s inner thigh. Teasing. 

The sound of skin slapping against plastic and spandex reverberated from the other side of the room, soft grunts muffled by mask and moans drowned by the gag. Baekhyun had dropped to his elbows, head buried into Sehun’s pillow. His erection poked at the skirt, cock leaked at the tip. Sehun pushed him further down into the bed with another thrust, one hand pushing at Baek’s back, the other cradling his hip in a death grip. 

Tao could feel himself getting hard. Could feel Kris hardening against the small of his back. Tao scooted a bit, reached up and guided Kris’s jaw to his. Pulled him into a kiss.

Their first kiss, actually.

It didn’t really hit Tao until maybe two hours later, but at the moment, it felt right. He propped his elbow against his leg and kept the camcorder up, aimed at the scene in front of them, and lost himself in the taste of _Kris._

In a blink, Kris’s tongue was in his mouth, rubbing against Tao’s, sliding against that metal ball. Kris’s hands didn’t stop roaming, didn’t stop tracing into Tao’s skin. Tao moaned softly into the kiss, hand wandering up and into Kris’s hair.

Baekhyun came first. It shot out against his stomach and onto the bed, skimming the trim of the skirt. Sehun came next, pushed to the hilt in Baekhyun’s ass, hips stuttering. He didn’t pull out right away, catching his breath behind the mask. In what seemed to be a split-second decision, he unzipped the mouth on his mask, pulled out of Baekhyun, who whimpered at the loss of sensation, and ducked, lips latching onto Baekhyun’s swollen rim.

Jerking, Baekyun tried to pull away, too sensitive. He groaned out Sehun’s name around the gag but Sehun held his hip, unrelenting, and ate Baekhyun out. When he pulled away, his own cum glistening on his lips, on the mask, it was after Baekhyun rode out a second, dry orgasm.

Tao pulled away from the kiss for a moment, hit the stop button, and set the camcorder on his nightstand. He reoriented so he could face Kris and straddled him, rolling his hips against Kris’s hardened length. Kris groaned and pulled Tao back down into the kiss, hands sliding down to rest on Tao’s hips.

Across the room, Sehun yanked off the mask, face flushed, raccoon scratches vibrant in the dark of the room. He tugged the blindfold off of Baekhyun, unbuckled the gag, and rolled Baekhyun over. Baekhyun smiled, dazed and dopey, back at him.

“You good?” Sehun asked, careful and quiet.

Baekhyun nodded. “Yeah, are you?”

Sehun nodded back, then jerked his head toward Tao and Kris. “Want to go take a shower?”

“Only if you carry me there.”

Tao registered the sound of the door clicking shut at the back of his mind, but he chose to focus on his daddy instead. He rocked back and forth on Kris’s lap, light-headed and hot from the sensation, from the never-ending kiss. Kris teased the skin under his shirt, stroked the skin poking out from under his shorts. His daddy’s cock felt _so good _beneath him, would feel even better in his mouth. 

Eyes glassy with lust, Tao broke the kiss and pulled back. Kris watched him, obviously disappointed at the lack of contact. Tao crawled over to the foot of the bed and kneeled, fisting the duvet with nervous hands.

“Can I suck your cock, daddy?” Tao asked, too entranced by the idea of Kris coming down his throat to catch the _want _filling Kris’s eyes. “Wanna taste you.”

“Have you ever sucked a cock, baby?” Kris shifted, oriented himself against the wall against the head of the bed. Tao crawled over and bit his lip, then shook his head. “Are you sure you want to?”

Tao met Kris’s eyes and behind the want, he found genuine adoration. Smiling softly, he nodded his head and gave Kris one last kiss, quick and reassuring.

“Yes, daddy. I really, _really_ want to.” Tao reached down and tugged on Kris’s sweatpants, pulled down his boxers. Kris watched his every move with hooded eyes. When Kris’s cock was freed, Tao stared down at it and licked his lips. 

The very thing he’d been lusting after for the past how many months now stood erect and waiting for him, for _Tao, _to take into his mouth. Kris’s cock was bigger than he imagined and it made his mouth water. Without waiting for another second, Tao ducked down and gave Kris a tentative stroke, tongue lapping out to taste the beading precum. Kris groaned, fingers threading through Tao’s hair. 

_More._

Abruptly, Tao hollowed out his cheeks and sunk his head, taking Kris as far as he could. The head of Kris’s cock hit the back of his throat and Tao shivered, moaning around the length. The grip on Tao’s hair tightened and Tao slowly pulled back up, careful to drag the metal ball in his tongue up the side of Kris’s length. When he got to the top, Tao swirled the piercing against the slit, causing Kris’s hips to jerk, cock sliding back into Tao’s mouth. Tao worked faster, sucking the cock back in, moaning around it, swirling his tongue around the length. Kris started fucking his mouth a bit, grip tight and pulling Tao back to him, but Tao didn’t mind. The idea of Kris using his mouth like this had Tao swallowing around his length, warm and shaky from the pleasure. 

After a few more thrusts, Kris stilled. “Tao, I’m—” He tried to pull out but Tao wouldn’t have it. Tao took the cock deeper than before and swallowed the cum, desperate to milk his daddy. Kris groaned out his name, cursing, and rode out his orgasm in Tao’s mouth. 

Satisfied, Tao released Kris’s cock and beamed up at the other. Kris pulled him up and brought Tao in for a kiss. Tao would’ve purred if he could at the feeling of Kris licking into his mouth.

“Fuck, Tao,” Kris breathed, forehead against Tao’s. Tao climbed onto Kris’s lap and plopped down, arms twining around Kris’s neck. He felt so tired, suddenly. “I thought you said you’d never sucked cock.”

“I haven’t,” Tao mumbled, breath ghosting against the skin of Kris’s neck. “But I practiced.”

_“Fuck.” _A hand crept up Tao’s thigh and thumbed the wet spot on his shorts. “_Tao.”_

Tao shifted just enough so he could look down. He wasn’t hard anymore, but he had been. Getting to play with his daddy’s cock must’ve been enough for him. “Huh.”

“Did you—did you even touch yourself?” Kris asked, low and careful. 

Shaking his head, Tao blushed. He started to get up, needing a new pair of shorts, but Kris tugged him back down. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I need new shorts,” Tao stated rather bluntly, the cum spot making him a little uncomfortable. He wiggled a little bit and Kris relinquished his hold, the heat in his gaze softening to something unreadable. Tao made quick work of it and swiftly changed clothes.

“C’mere, Taozi,” Kris beckoned him back over when he was done, and scooted them down the bed so they could lay down. Tao pulled at the blankets and nuzzled into Kris’s chest. 

It was like this that Sehun and Baekhyun found them only moments later. The two of them clearly got caught up doing something unsavory in the shower and took much longer than usual. Instead of chatting the sleepy pair up, the newly-showered duo threw the clothes back into the bag, put the lube away, and got dressed for bed. 

Tao was long-asleep by the time Sehun realized that the camcorder was still blinking and told Kris to turn it off.


	9. the aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey everyone! i hope all is well for you guys. for those of you still in school, good luck w upcoming finals!
> 
> also, two notes:  
1) I have never played any silent hill game ever  
2) I apparently don't know what a practice studio looks like  
both of these things have been taken at creative liberty lmao

Something had definitely changed, at least in the dynamic of their group as a whole.

Two sides had formed in this war of what Suho deemed stupidity. On one side, there was Tao, Sehun, Baekhyun, Chen, and Kai. Although a few other people had done some remarkably questionable things, Suho deemed them repeat offenders and made sure to subject some poor “responsible” sap to watch over them throughout the day. Yesterday, that had been Kris, and Kris woke up that day a new man, having watched his members make a porno and gotten his dick sucked. Suho, of course, was unaware of this all until the morning when he found Kris’s bed empty.

He had no reason to be suspicious until Kris still hadn’t appeared an hour and a half later. They had practice at eight and needed to leave for the large dance studio by seven-forty-five. It was seven-twenty and Kris was absent—so were Tao and Chanyeol, but one of those was unrelated.

This is how poor Yixing was subject to alarm duty. He knocked on Tao’s door and woke them up with some soft nudges and a “Suho’s pissed and we have to leave,” promptly sending both Tao and Kris into a panic. Yixing, fortunately, knew how to keep his mouth shut and promised not to say a goddamn thing about where Kris was and what it looked like he had done.

In the time it took Yixing to fetch Chanyeol, Tao and Kris had gotten dressed in their respective rooms. They made it downstairs just in time to see Chen slide a twenty Sehun’s way with a wink. 

Suho, now, was appropriately suspicious of Kris. Kris, to everyone’s mild surprise, didn’t seem to care too much and appeared a hell of a lot more preoccupied tending to Tao who was complaining about a pulled muscle in his jaw. Whatever that meant.

They split into the subunits for the car ride to the studio. The recording studio was in the same building, as were the practice spaces for other SM groups. It wasn’t too far from their dorm, but that didn’t make the car ride any less tiring for EXO-K.

Tao got several texts from Sehun during the ride.

_suho’s boutta have an aneurysm I can feel it_

Tao swiftly typed back: _whatd u do_

He was in the very back with Chen, who was busy reading fic on his phone. Kris drove while Yixing slept in the passenger seat. Luhan and Xiumin held a conversation in the middle row about how weird everyone was being lately.

_literally nothing, I just breathe and he glares at me in the rearview_

Tao frowned. _That’s unfounded tho, did u say something_

_I mean, _the typing bubble, then: _I may have suggested he needed to get laid_

“Fucking Sehun,” Chen grumbled, seemingly reading Tao’s mind. When Tao glanced over at him in alarm, Chen added, “He’s being dumb in this fic. Don’t mind me.”

Tao frowned. “Is that the one Sehun told you about?”

“No, I finished that yesterday. This is a new one. Do you want me to link you?”

“Uh, no, it’s fine.”

His phone buzzed. _I can feel u judging me_

_Ur just helpless at this point_

“Oh,” Chen said, lowering his voice. “Sehun gave me my camera back. You guys must’ve gone crazy or something, I feel like I owe more than twenty.”

Tao’s brows pulled together. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I looked, Tao. The video you guys recorded is like, an hour and a half long.”

Blinking, Tao thought back to the night before. He didn’t think it took _that _long. Did it? It couldn’t have. There was no way. “It shouldn’t be that long.”

Chen shrugged. “Maybe you forgot to turn it off or something.”

The van swerved a bit on the road and Luhan made a jab at Kris and his driving.

“No, no I turned it off, I remember—”

“Chill, dude. It’s not a big deal. I’ll just crop out whatever we don’t need and toss it.”

Tao grabbed his knees and tried not to think of the worst. If he didn’t turn off the camcorder when he thought he did, so what? It’d catch him hot for Kris’s cock. Hopefully it didn’t get footage or anything. Like, of the actual act—

“Christ, Tao, why do you look so freaked?” Chen teased. “I told you, it’ll be fine.”

An awkward laugh. “Yeah, okay.”

~*~

Practice was, well… practice.

A few SM rookies camped out and watched them dance. Tao recognized a couple of them and waved when he had the chance. During the break, he followed Sehun over to talk Johnny.

Tao remembered Johnny. He trained with them for several years but didn’t get to debut with EXO. There are some rumors of another group in formation, but Tao’s not really in the loop and the managers tended to keep that information to themselves.

“Hey, Sehun,” Johnny greeted. The two did some complicated handshake that left Tao in the dust. “Oh, hey Tao. What’s up?”

“Not much, just practicing. We have to go to the recording studio after this.”

Johnny made a face. “Got it. Have fun with that.”

“Yeah, real fun,” Sehun snorted. “What about you?”

“We’re just practicing, too. We’re probably going to go get lunch soon though.”

Not a huge fan of small talk, Tao tuned them out and let his eyes wander around the room. A couple of managers and trainers walked in, as well as some other familiar faces, scattering EXO’s members between them. He found Kris talking with Suho and their manager and watched the trio converse. The manager had a stern expression on his face and Tao frowned. Kris’s eyes flickered over to meet his and Kris jerked his head in a small shake. _Not now, Tao._

“… and so yeah, I’m really hoping this works,” Sehun concluded, bringing Tao back to the topic. 

Johnny, on the other hand, did not share Sehun’s misguided enthusiasm. “Wait, you _what?”_

“It’s called Operation: Hunhan and—”

Tao slapped a hand over Sehun’s mouth, effectively cutting him off. In response, Sehun licked Tao’s hand, and Tao cried out in disgust. “Ignore him,” Tao tried to say, wiping his hand furiously on his pants. “Sehun, this _really _isn’t the time to be talking about this.”

“Why not? It’s not like anyone else is listening,” Sehun said, scowling.

Johnny laughed uneasily. “Well, just be careful. If the managers find out, you’re screwed, Sehun.” He slapped his hand on Sehun’s shoulder and backed away, giving a final wave before he rejoined the trainees. 

Once Johnny was out of earshot, Tao whirled on Sehun. _“_Our _managers _are less than twenty feet away and you decide _now _was a good time to talk about your scheme to get Luhan?”

Sehun shrugged. “I like Johnny. We’re friends.”

“Location, Sehun!”

Someone clapped their hands. “EXO! Back to your places, guys!” Tao sent one last withering look at Sehun before hurrying over to his spot.

~*~

They wrapped up the last dance and were instantly sent to the showers. The manager reminded them that they had to go to the recording studio like Suho hadn’t reminded them several times already, which really just translated to “don’t dawdle in the showers.” Sehun, ready to complain, looped his arm through Tao’s and dragged him toward the locker room. Tao made a noise of protest and glanced back over his shoulder at Kris, but Kris had gotten held up by the manager once again, face hardened. 

The showers in the locker room functioned a bit differently than the ones back at the dorm. Since this was a multipurpose facility with several groups using it, the locker room resembled one at a public gym. Dozens of lockers, benches, changing stalls, vanities, a bathroom area, and designated shower area filled the large tiled space. Sehun stripped in record speed and grabbed his towel, teasing Tao for taking so long. 

Unlike those at the dorms, which had full doors and changing spaces, the showers at the studio locker room were separated by tiled half-walls and curtains. Really, there was no reason for them to shower together: there were plenty and some people, like Kyungsoo, loathed standing under the spray for more than five minutes. But here they were, wedged between Xiumin and Chen’s showers, huddled under the steamy heat. 

Sehun didn’t seem to pay Tao’s body much attention—he had before, and it always caught Tao off guard—as he hadn’t yet commented on the pierced additions. Which, honestly, Tao was secretly glad. He got those for himself (Kris) and he didn’t really need, nor want, unnecessary attention.

He could only imagine what kind of comments Sehun could make.

“Fuck, everything hurts,” Sehun droned, pushing back his hair.

“Shouldn’t you be used to it by now?” Chen shot back.

Sehun rolled his head and groaned, hogging the warm water. Tao pushed him aside and tried to rinse off while he could. “My face stings,” Sehun added.

“Yeah, you irritated it.” Tao wasn’t having it. That stupid mask probably rubbed those healing wounds in all the wrong ways and made everything ten times worse for the whiny maknae. “Shut up about it and move on.”

“Harsh, Taozi,” Xiumin chastised.

Sehun snorted. “Why so bitchy? Shouldn’t you be in a good mood today?”

“Did it ever occur to you that I can only listen to so much bitching before I start to lose patience?” Tao shot back, face heating up. “In the car, during practice, now here, in the shower. All I’ve heard from you today has been fucking complaints. Except for when you were talking to Johnny, but you straight up brought up something that _should not be talked about—”_

A couple showers down, Baekhyun mocked Tao under his breath. Tao shot a glare in the other’s direction. Sehun, watching Tao with thinly veiled amusement, crossed his arms and shook his head.

“As my best friend, Tao, you’re legally obligated to listen to me complain. Besides, after all I’ve done for you, I think a ‘thank you’ is in order, and if you’re not going to say that, the best you can do is comfort poor Sehunnie is his time of need.”

Chen snorted. Then he got soap in his eye and exclaimed in pain.

Tao sucked on his teeth and shook his head. While Sehun was busy making jabs at Chen, he hurried up and rinsed off, grabbing his towel and slipping out of the shower stall. Sehun called out after him, but Tao was almost to the exit.

And he would’ve made it, too, had Kris and Suho not just stepped into the doorway, effectively blocking his path. The two leaders were still fully dressed and looked fairly happy about something. Tao bit his tongue accidentally, nearly body-slamming Kris in his mad dash. Kris jumped a bit and placed his hands on Tao’s shoulders to steady him.

“Oh, good, Tao, you’re still here,” Suho said, glancing around the room. “Can I have everyone’s attention please?” It was only then that Tao noticed Kyungsoo peering over Suho’s shoulder. “We have an announcement to make.”

Tao, feeling like he was in the way, slinked over to stand partially behind Kris. He readjusted the towel around his waist and mildly regretted leaving the showers prematurely. Most of the members, Sehun included, stuck their heads out from around the shower curtains. Baekhyun even stepped out and wrapped the towel around himself like a dress.

Awkwardly, Tao crossed his arms, flinching when he bumped a pair of ill-placed piercings.

“We just spoke with the managers. They managed to book us a three-day excursion at a hot springs spa in Japan. We’ll fly out this Thursday,” Suho announced, clapping his hands together. “This is good! It’ll be a bonding experience, and most of it will be filmed. It’ll air in a few weeks from now and be an exclusive feature showing the real ambiance of EXO.”

“What’s the catch?” Chen asked. 

Suho laughed, albeit forcefully. “Catch? There’s no catch. I think—”

“We’ll be on camera for the most part,” Kris reminded them. “So this means being _careful _about what’s done and said. We’ll get some privacy, yeah, but—”

Suho jumped back in. “Our fans want to see behind the scenes of EXO, so it’s important we show them how we act when we’re not on stage.”

A couple of cheers. “Too easy,” Chen noted. “Are we supposed to play stupid games or something? Go eat spicy food?”

Here, Suho’s face faltered a bit, and Kris rubbed at the back of his neck. “We have to buddy-system for the whole weekend. It’s the producer’s idea.”

“What do you mean, ‘buddy system’?” Kyungsoo asked, voice soft and thoroughly startling. Tao jumped a bit and grabbed Kris’s t-shirt. He forgot Kyungsoo was there.

“Tonight, after we record, the managers are going to have us pull names out of a hat to see who we’ll get handcuffed to,” Suho explained, causing several cheers to die out. “We’ll have to wear the cuffs all weekend.”

Something dropped in Tao’s gut and he figured this weekend would either go very, _very _well or very, _very _wrong.

“Wait, we have to get cuffed to each other?” Chanyeol blurted, staring wide-eyed from behind the curtain. “The whole time?”

“Not—not the _whole _time,” Suho was quick to add, meeting several confused gazes. “Getting dressed would be impossible, so, we can take them off then—”

“How? Is there a button or something?” Luhan asked. “I thought the point of handcuffs was to keep them on, right?”

Suho started laughing again, eyeing Kris for assistance. 

In response, Kris shrugged. “I don’t know. These might be special or whatever. Point is, be prepared to pair off. They’ll probably have us do stuff to test trust with other members.”

Some grumbling and mild complaints from several people. Someone—who Tao discovered to be Baekhyun—was clapping. Tao ducked out while he had the chance and strolled over to his locker, pulling out a change of clothes and swiftly getting dressed. 

He wondered if there was a way he could rig the system so he could get cuffed to Kris. At least, if Sehun got Kris, then Tao could try and trade. When the managers weren’t looking, that is.

The presence of cameras at the spa forgotten, Tao let his gaze wander over to where Kris and Suho were conversing with Kyungsoo at the shower area entry. It appeared neither of the leaders were planning on showering at the moment and Tao made a mental note to keep an eye out for when Kris _did. _Maybe if he asked his daddy nice enough, Tao could come with.

Something hard smacked his ass and Tao whirled around to glare at a smug Baekhyun. The other was rubbing his hands together, wiggling his eyes at Tao’s behind.

"Nice ass, Taozi,” Baekhyun teased. “Not as nice as mine, though.”

Tao shook his head. “Okay? Thanks?”

Baekhyun hummed a bit and slinked over to the locker beside Tao’s, leaning against the cool metal and looking up at Tao. “Can you do me a favor?”

Trepidation. “That really depends, Baek.”

“I’m not asking for help with another sex tape.”

“Still depends,” Tao said.

A wistful sigh. “You’ve got daddy duizhang wrapped around your finger. I see the way he looks at you. Saw the way he held you yesterday.” Tao turned to face the shorter and Baekhyun offered another dreamy sigh, staring off into the distance. “I want that.”

“You want Kris?” Tao started, low and threatening.

“Fuck no. Christ. He’s all yours, Taozi.” Baekhyun shook his head and scoffed. “I need your help winning someone over.”

“Oh.”

Baekhyun nodded. “Yeah. You and Sehun are the only two I can trust with this, but since Sehun’s efforts at winning Lu are misguided at best, you’re my only hope.”

Misguided was an understatement. Tao nodded in understanding, but still approached the topic with caution. “What do you want me to do?”

“Easy. I’m going to text you a link, and I want you to text it to Chanyeol. Make it seem like you meant to send it to Chen instead. Chen’s aware so if Chanyeol goes to interrogate him, he’ll be able to fill in. I just need you to play your part,” Baekhyun explained, gesturing minutely with his hands. 

Tao frowned. “That’s it?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“What if he doesn’t click on it?” Tao asked.

Baekhyun smiled, faux innocence in his eyes. “He will. If there’s one thing that Chanyeol is, it’s curious.”

Shrugging, Tao packed the rest of his belongings in his bag and shut his locker. He wasn’t sure how accurate of a statement that was, but he didn’t want to push any buttons and get too involved with the plan. “I’ll do it.”

“Cool. I’ll send you the link later and further instructions.”

_Further instructions? _ What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

Before Tao could ask, Yixing, Chen, and Kai strolled over. Baekhyun instantly jumped into the conversation and started getting dressed. Tao laughed along, joking with Yixing about how his hair started to dry. It felt _normal_, as odd as that sounded. 

Then, in a blink, that nostalgia vanished.

~*~

Recording the missing bits to the song took longer than expected. To make things simple, they just ended up singing the songs over entirely. EXO-K and EXO-M split up into groups to record, but once it was over, the managers sat them down in a small lounge and presented a bowl.

It was incredibly short notice, this whole spa excursion, but everyone seemed fairly on board. They had Xiumin start as the eldest and moved downward by age. Xiumin reached in and drew Chen’s name. The two high-fived across the coffee table. 

Luhan reached in and drew Sehun. He smiled sweetly over at the maknae and Sehun had to physically hold in the urge to do a victory dance. At least, that’s what it felt like to Tao, who had to deal with Sehun’s practically vibrating arm against his side.

Kris was next. Tao crossed his fingers under the table and perked up when Kris read off Tao’s name. Perfect. Tao beamed at Kris, nerves electrified. He couldn’t wait to be “forced” to cuddle with Kris on tatami mats and “have” to sit next to him in the hot springs.

Suho pulled out his own name first. Then, at the manager’s insistence, he pulled out another name. Lay’s. Suho breathed a sigh of relief and tugged the most relaxed, stress-free member into a hug. Lay just laughed and sent the bowl to Baekhyun, who pulled out both Suho and Kris’s names before he got Chanyeol’s. The two cheered and clapped hands with each other, sending Chen, who was stuck between them, sinking back into the couch. 

That left Kai and Kyungsoo by default. The two exchanged some shrugs and small smiles. Despite Kai’s chaotic nature, Kyungsoo had a soft spot for him, and the two often hung out with each other when nothing else was going on. 

The managers reminded them that their flight was Thursday evening before sending all twelve members on their way. They decided to pick up some food on the way home and spend the night in. Tomorrow, after practice, they would pack.

~*~

Tao wanted to _strangle _Chen.

After dinner, Chen had suggested that they all hang out in the living room and play a game. This, unbeknownst to nearly everyone, translated to watch-Chen-play-a-game. And Chen decided he wanted to play Silent Hill: Downpour, screwing over Tao completely.

Tao, really, could’ve just _left, _but he was wedged between Kris and Sehun, neither of which would let him get up off the couch. Every time he’d so much as shift, Sehun would mock him with a “Scared, Taozi?” or Kris would give him this _look_ and ask if he was leaving. So, no, Tao couldn’t leave. Not really.

Things got worse when the—the whatever the fuck they were’s—started showing up and coming at Chen. Tao started jumping at literally everything: random noises, Chen opening a door, Chanyeol breathing too loud. It got old very fast. To distract himself, Tao slid down on the couch and reoriented himself. Head on Kris’s lap, legs swung over the couch (having “accidentally” kicked Sehun in the process), Tao pulled out his phone.

Porn plus background horror? A combination Tao clearly wasn’t ready for. He couldn’t sit still, couldn’t breathe. The fic wasn’t enough to distract him from the gurgling groans on screen, but both stimulants had his adrenaline spiking. Then Kris ran a hand through his hair.

Tao started shaking. 

He vaguely felt as he had during that dream two nights ago, when he was laying on that table, sprawled and ready for the taking as his blood poured from his body, draining him of his lifeforce. How asphyxiating it felt, the fear choke-holding him, the pleasure working him. How vulnerable it made him.

Uh oh.

No, no, no. 

A certain part of him liked that idea a little too much and Tao wanted to whine. It freaked him out to the point that he felt uncomfortable in his own skin and he just—

Kris’s hand in his hair stilled and his gaze dropped to Tao, brows furrowing. But before he could say anything to inquire about Tao’s current state, Chen jerked and paused the game, vaulting up and startling everyone.

“Fuck,” he blurted, eyes wide. “I just realized I forgot to do something. Chanyeol, take over for me.” He tossed the remote toward Chanyeol and Chanyeol fumbled with it for a good minute or two before getting a good grip, immediately squinting at the screen. A few members shrugged and took this opportunity as a break and went to go get refills and the like. Tao shot up, accidentally elbowing Kris’s leg in the process, and followed in Chen’s footsteps.

Whatever it was the vocalist was doing, it was sure to be a distraction.

Tao found Chen sitting on his bed with his laptop propped open, camcorder plugged in. He glanced up in a panic when the door opened but relaxed visibly when he realized it was just Tao.

“Shit, you scared me.”

“Sorry.” Not.

Chen didn’t move, eyes glued to the screen. “Do you need something?”

"You said you were going to edit that footage, right?” Tao asked, conveniently reminded of what Chen mentioned earlier in the car.

A nod. “Yeah, duh. It’s way too long.”

“Good.”

When Tao didn’t leave, Chen offered him an inquisitive look. “You want to watch it or something?”

“Just—do what you need to do.”

Chen huffed and queued up the film, waiting for it to load in the video editor. Sehun’s gloved thumbs up popped up on the paused screen, Baekhyun on hands and knees. “Wow,” Chen said, clearly appreciating the sight. “Lucky fucker, you got to film this.”

“Uh, yeah. Real lucky,” Tao shot back, voice dry. He crossed his arms and watched with narrow eyes as Chen let the first few minutes play, then stopped, going back and cutting out the first few thirty seconds or so. He also did something with the audio but Tao didn’t understand exactly what. Probably some tech shit. Then Chen let the video play again. 

The actual fucking bit took almost twenty minutes or so. Longer than Tao remembered, but he was a bit distracted at the time. Chen paid too much attention, and it made Tao feel out of place. Minor editing here and there. 

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, staring over Chen’s shoulder at the screen, but it was long enough for Baekhyun to materialize in the doorway. The older member slipped in without a word, scaring both Chen and Tao by clapping his hands once the main act was over.

“Amazing!”

Tao jumped and Chen let out a wail, preparing to slam the laptop shut.

“You people need to start knocking!” Chen complained, running a hand over his hair. Baekhyun just laughed and pushed his way over to Chen’s bed, curling around the other member so he could see the screen. Chen had paused the video at the interruption, preparing to delete the remaining content, but Baekhyun stopped him.

“Hey, wait.”

Chen turned to look at him and Tao’s heart dropped. “What? The rest of this is just bull, right?”

“I don’t know. The look on Tao’s face says otherwise.”

Two matching Cheshire grins came to life, heads churning in Tao’s direction. 

“Please just delete the rest of the video,” Tao said, hoping to sound intimidating, but sounding pathetically desperate instead. He could _feel _his face heating up, his hands clamming up. “Please.”

“We will, Taozi,” Baekhyun reassured him, reaching over and patting him on the arm. “Only after we watch it first.”

Huffing, Tao took the last remaining spot on the bed behind Chen. No way were they going to watch this without Tao’s supervision. Knowing these two, there was a chance the video would get “lost” on Chen’s computer and he’d be worried about it resurfacing several years later as blackmail or some shit. He couldn’t say he was totally happy about the turn of events, but it was better than being terrified.

“Fine. Any funny business and I tell duizhang.”

Chen snorted. “I don’t think getting Kris involved in this is a good idea, Tao.”

Frowning, Tao stared at the back of Chen’s head as he hit the resume button. The video presented the scene from the night before: Sehun and Baekhyun climbing off to go get a shower as Tao set down the camera. Unfortunately, the camera ended up on Tao’s nightstand, partially aimed at his bed. Fortunately, though, something on the table—honestly Tao wasn’t even sure _what _that was, but it looked like a wrinkled shirt—blocked the bottom half of the screen. 

On-screen, Tao was busy climbing onto Kris’s lap. 

“Well fuck,” Chen sighed. “Kris already is involved.”

“Threat still stands,” Tao reminded him.


End file.
